Sweet Illusions
by sothereyougo
Summary: Sam Winchester doesn't trust himself any more, and, in some ways, maybe he never did, but there were times he'd really tried not to let the things he couldn't control ruin everything. Didn't trying that hard matter at least a little, or was he fooling himself about that too?
1. Chapter 1

**Warnings:** Language, Angst, Sexual situations, maybe triggering from a little abusive language that is presented in a very negative light toward the speakers. For more on this, see a note at the end of the story. **Spoilers:** Part One is set in Season 5 near the beginning of "Free to Be You and Me" when Sam is on his own but _before_ the main action of that episode happens. Part Two is pre-series. **Disclaimer:** Well, other people made these people and these situations up first, and there's not a thing I can do about it, especially not profit from it in any tangible way. (Keepin' the intangibles though, heh heh.) **Notes:** AU with specific grounding in canon story. Title and lyrical excerpts are from the song "Sweet Illusions" by Adams, Bowersock, Cashdollar, Pemberton, and Popper from Cold Roses (Ryan Adams & The Cardinals), 2005.

* * *

(Part One)

_If we were nothing and we're only the past_  
_Then I'm just living in a dream I guess_  
_A long black dream that takes me down the river to you_

He hadn't been having a bad dream just before he woke up, and he did know where he was, not that it mattered because it was just another anonymous motel room like so many others. This one didn't even have any mildly-entertaining regional flavor to its décor. It was as generic as could be and could be anywhere, but it was specifically right off state highway 74 in Garber, Oklahoma adjacent to a truck stop. It had seemed like as good a place as any to stop for a while, and Sam planned on going into town in a day or maybe two to look for a low-key job to pick up a little legit cash before choosing whether or not to move on.

The location close to the truck stop had two things in its favor: it would be an easy place to hitch a ride if he couldn't find a job, and the store there was bound to have a better beverage selection than the motel vending machine because what had awakened him was a headache most likely brought on by dehydration, which seemed reasonably confirmed by the fact that his tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth. Sam had passed out on the bed only a few minutes after he walked into the room and cranked up the AC, his exhaustion winning out over the road grit that had made the idea of a shower appealing for about ten seconds before he'd decided to lie down on the bed while he thought about it.

So, that meant he was still fully clothed, including his boots, which further meant that all he had to do was grab the room key before he made for the door without bothering to so much as glance in the mirror. After all, it was two in the morning in freakin' Garber, Oklahoma , and he was headed to a truck stop, not an ice cream social. Once he closed the door behind him, Sam stopped and took a deep breath, hoping to clear his groggy head, but the September air was thick and smelled like truck exhaust, the warm damp weight of it making him wish he'd managed the shower before falling asleep or had at least splashed some cold water on his face just now, so he ran his fingers back through his hair as he started walking, tucking the lank strands that were long enough to stay there behind his ears, if only to stop it sticking and tickling uncomfortably against his skin.

His route took him from the asphalt of the motel parking lot, transitioned briefly to a strip of dirt no-man's land, and then concluded with the concrete paving of the truck stop itself, which was almost as colorfully and brightly lit in neon as some mobile home back off the side of the road all decorated for Christmas in every unnatural garish shade imaginable, was equally in the middle of nowhere, but the gleam here was entirely mercantile with no sign of any comparable noble sentiment. Sam spotted all of three or four customers in the restaurant and out by the gas and diesel pumps, but there was nobody else in the store section when he strolled in. The girl behind the counter stared at him without replying when he mumbled, "Hey" as he passed her on the way to the wall of drink coolers, and he could feel her eyes on him still as he checked over the selection.

Sam immediately felt every inch of his height as he wondered idly if being alone in the place with a man his size in the middle of the night was making her nervous, a thought that would normally be neutral and logical but which at the moment was vaguely depressing. Bypassing all the fancy vitamin waters and even the blandly healthy fruit juices, he chose a 16-oz. bottle of Mountain Dew, hesitating over getting the decaf version but then deciding that the caffeine might help his headache once he washed some aspirin down with it.

Crossing over to the section with pain relievers and other medicinal goods, he picked up a bottle of the aspirin before heading back over to the juices to get some OJ for the morning after all, all the while sensing the girl continuing to follow his every move, which was starting to annoy him in the way it set off a mildly defensive protest in his mind very similar to having a cop car pull in behind when he knew he wasn't doing anything wrong, not right then anyway, but he still couldn't stop himself from checking the speedometer just to be sure.

In this case, Sam knew he had every intention of paying and with cash too, but it didn't take much to amp up the flow rate on the steady rolling undercurrent of guilt and remorse that was his constant companion these days, although it had been there as long as he could remember if he let himself admit it, with only the particular reasons shuffling around and re-ranking themselves depending on circumstances. As he approached the cash register, Sam raised his eyes for a brief glance back before dropping them again as he set the items on the counter.

"Is that all?"

Sam finally looked directly at her as he answered, "Yeah, thanks."

Up close she was even younger than he'd thought, her skin pale and smooth under the fluorescent light, dark blonde hair cut so that it just reached the nape of her neck in the back but angled longer in the front, a style he knew there was probably a name for but that no doubt Sam wouldn't even recognize if he heard somebody else say it out loud.

"No problem," she said quietly as her large eyes peered back at him.

Then, when she almost immediately couldn't maintain the eye contact, he noticed that in contrast to the general impression of softness she gave off, her lashes were spiky and stiff-looking from being coated in too much stark black mascara, a girly product even he could give the proper name. She was pretending that she had to carefully examine each item as she rang it up, color briefly suffusing her face and then fading like the fleeting rose of sunrise giving way to a white winter sky.

"That'll be $11.28 with tax," she recited, a shy smile playing across her lips as she gazed up at him again.

"Okay," and the twenty he fished from his pocket was worn smooth like it'd been through the wash quite a few times with some fabric softener in the rinse.

She was painfully cute, maybe the barest hint of the pink in her cheeks lingering, and so painfully young too, too young to be checking him out this way, despite her blushes, as her eyes swept over him and kept dropping lower and lower with an intensity that said she wished she could see through his clothing, and Sam belatedly finally realized that all along she hadn't been afraid of him or worried that he was going to shoplift.

"You stayin' at the Redbud?" she asked as her fingers worked deftly in the cash drawer, back to not looking at him again.

"Yeah," and he hoped the monosyllable would satisfy her curiosity and that she'd let it drop right there.

Instead, she lifted his hand off the counter top and cradled it in her much smaller one as she went to place his change in it with the other. Sam's discomfort with the whole situation caused him to pull away with only the folding money securely deposited, so the coins splattered on the hard surface underneath, jangling loudly in contrast to the stillness of the empty store before rolling away to disappear.

"Oh, sorry," she called out.

Sam glanced automatically at the floor but didn't see any of them, not that he really cared.

"That's all right," he protested when she started punching buttons on the register to open it up again for replacement change.

"Okay, then," came the too-quick answer, and the tension kept on building while she was clearly trying to think of something else to say.

When she didn't actually speak, Sam broke the awkward silence, "Thanks then, bye, " the words all clipped staccato as he picked up the plastic bag containing his purchases and turned away.

At the last possible second after he'd already taken a couple of steps, she let fly with a Hail Mary, "Wait."

Against his better judgment, Sam froze and slowly faced her again, "Uh huh?" he asked warily.

"I'm Amy," she said. "Hey, so you wanna hang out awhile? It's so dead this time of night. Death by boredom. "

It was a transparent ploy, and it made him simultaneously and uncomfortably aware of both the really bad idea aspect of it as well as the budding flower appeal of her standing there looking at him with the invitation to do more than look back written all over her face. Sam didn't want to, but some feral animalistic part of him insisted he fully take in the picture she made, such vulnerable prey with her soft, poreless skin, her mouth slightly open, the high round curves of her breasts, and he further couldn't help seeing that her nipples were hard underneath her thin t-shirt, although she probably didn't even know it herself.

Jess had explained to him once that women couldn't necessarily always feel that when it happened randomly, not unless something _else_ called attention to it, and the back-half of that memory along with the mere thought of Jess snapped Sam out of it, his inner voice vaguely self-accusatory even though he'd never for a minute considered letting anything happen anyway. On the contrary, he felt a wave of protectiveness break over him as he resolutely walked back over.

"Hey, Amy. I'm, uh, Keith. It's not exactly safe to talk too much to customers this time of night, ya know, men especially? I'm sure it really is boring too, and, believe me, I've had my share of boring jobs myself, but you should probably be more careful. Besides, I'm kinda too old for you anyway," he finished gently.

Although he hadn't thought through exactly what he'd expected her reaction to be, it wasn't the angry huff of her breath as the impetus for the color in her cheeks changed abruptly like the flick of a cat's tail.

"Yeah, thanks, Keith. But you don't know shit cause I make more money peddlin' my ass, or mostly my mouth, to the truckers on a good weekend than you probably clear in a month. But I still wasn't gonna charge you anything 'cause I thought you were hot."

"I'm sorry. I just−"

"Yeah, okay, whatever. Just leave already."

She didn't need to tell him twice, and he nearly stumbled when his boot heel caught on the concrete edge as it gave onto the dirt track in his haste to get back inside the solitude of the hotel room. Sam stood with his back against the door and banged his head against it a couple of times. What would it take for the instinct to help people to leave him alone, to leave him in peace, especially now that he wasn't hunting and would instead be trying to keep an even lower profile than usual?

He would just have to take this as another rude wake-up call to try that much harder to blend into the woodwork, although he couldn't think of anything he'd done or said to call attention to himself just now. Well, he would have to be even more on his guard then, must have eased up some from being tired and not used to _not_ looking at every encounter from a hunter's perspective. On the other hand, maybe he needed to hold on to that perspective even tighter when he wasn't hunting because it wasn't like he'd actually forgotten he wasn't one of them, wasn't a civilian and never would be.

The unexpected detour things had taken back at the store had made him forget temporarily how thirsty he was, but the sudden throb behind his eyes reminded him again. Sam fished the aspirin bottle from the bag and tossed a few into his hand. Twisting off the cap of the soda and dropping it on the bed, he threw the pills into his mouth, turned up the bottle, and gulped until it collapsed inward from the suction. He yanked the bottle away from his mouth impatiently to release the pressure and then resumed drinking until it was half-empty, but the whole time his brain conjured up the image of another kind of suction, of Amy looking up at him from down on her knees where she was getting ready to take him into that disconcertingly-experienced mouth of hers.

Shaking his head violently, Sam tried to push the image away because it shouldn't ever have turned out that way for such a young girl. She was eighteen or nineteen at the most, and the idea of her doing that for money for a bunch of men old enough to be her father or maybe even her grandfather made him sick to his stomach. So why did the fleeting thought of her doing it to _him_ make his dick twitch in his jeans, that little twitch promising to turn into a full-fledged boner? And it was too late to think it down now. He could tell that already as he fumbled on the bed for the bottle cap before twisting it firmly back on.

The unlikelihood of putting the genie of his hardening cock back in the bottle as easily forced a bitter eye roll as he pulled his shirt over his head and made for the shower that might itself seem like a symbolic attempt at a ritual cleansing too if it didn't actually mean instead that the temptation to jack off was only going to escalate once the warm water started running down his body. Traveling with Dean all this time ensured he'd almost always _had_ to do it in the shower, and the only thing more unsettling than the unwanted flashes of Amy continuing to intrude into his head was the prospect of lying there in the dark for hours waiting for the sleep that would be difficult enough to come by after his unplanned nap earlier in the evening and all while also waiting for a hard-on to go away unassisted.

The empty futility and loneliness of that scenario matched up too well with constantly fighting against other things happening to him that he didn't want either but couldn't seem to stop any more than he could stop his dick from getting hard at any damn random daydream of a pretty girl offering to suck it. And it was no more than he could stop thinking about her doing it either after she'd blurted it all out back there even if she'd only said it because he'd unintentionally pissed her off and hurt her feelings from just wanting to keep something bad from happening to her some other time when it was somebody worse than him standing there who actually was burning to get his hands on her. Naturally, she didn't have any way of knowing that there might not _be_ anybody worse than Sam alive on the face of the planet tonight all the same, except that it was for a completely unrelated reason.

Only it wasn't _completely_ unrelated if he considered that sucking the wrong thing from the wrong person had been a big part of what got him where he was right now, alone in a skeevy motel room in Bumfuck, Oklahoma when he should have been in Bumfuck, whatever state Dean was in helping him fight. Since this was right where the vicious circle always started repeating its revolutions, Sam stepped out of his jeans and underwear and left them huddled together on the floor as he took in the familiar sight of his cock looking back up at him just as he'd expected, and with the usual expectant one-eyed salute, while he reached into the shower to adjust the water temperature a little hotter.

What the fuck was the point of taking a cold shower now anyway, what with the AC working pretty damn well in this place for cooling him back off after a hot one instead and for the fact that the frigid water only made things worse usually when he was already this far gone? And why exactly was he fighting so hard against picturing Amy going down on him for that matter? It wasn't like he could save her from whoring herself out or even go back in time to before he knew that she'd wanted to give him a freebie. He couldn't unknow it now, not any of it.

Sam stuck his head under the shower stream and let it soak his hair before stepping back to let the heated water flow directly over his erection. It felt so good that he stopped trying to resist and took his rigid length into his right hand instead and started jerking it in hard, angry strokes, bracing himself with the other hand against the wall of the shower, as merciless with his cock as his mind so often was with him, giving it up there too as he imagined Amy letting out muffled moans as he fucked against her mouth, imagined treating her and himself like the whores they both were because they didn't think they deserved any better. Well, she did, but it was too late for that, and he sure didn't, not any more. This wasn't going to take long, Sam stroking faster and faster and groaning out, "Fuck, fuck, fuck . . ." under his breath until the release hit him and then rinsed down the drain almost as quickly as it shot, him wishing the ache from having handled himself so roughly didn't feel so fucking good while he was coming even if it would leave him a little cock-sore afterward, and yet the thing would be just as hard and eager as usual whenever he woke up tomorrow morning, or this morning actually, considering what time it was.

Sam sighed and reached for the shampoo bottle, letting the foam do double duty as bath soap too because the post-orgasm drowsiness was rolling in, and he was hoping it would last long enough for him to make it back to the bed so he could possibly get some more sleep instead of taking a few thousand more laps around the track of guilt and recriminations and what-if's that never got him anywhere but only dug him deeper into the hole he was already in where he wasn't any good to himself or, more importantly, to anybody else either, which had to be the point of this whole sojourn anyway, the trying to get himself to where he could help again, not that it would undo anything that was already done, but that it was what he owed now, doing anything he could to help save whoever could be saved. Earning back Dean's trust and respect might be a byproduct of all that, but Sam wasn't counting on it.

Hurrying through the rest of his shower and collapsing into bed didn't stop him from worrying almost the second his head hit the pillow about the way he'd let himself fantasize about Amy just then. It still seemed wrong instead of just appropriately dirty even though it was true enough that he didn't exactly ever think about lollipops and candy canes at such times anyway, which only proved that he was no different than any other guy generally speaking. Earlier it had been a memory of Jess that had both helped him disengage from the purely physical appeal of an Amy that still had its effect separate from the fact that Sam had never considered so much as touching her and had then led him to muddle into making things worse with his misguided concern that she'd clearly interpreted as rejection and insult and probably even the coup de grâce of condescension. A pang of pure misery hit Sam, a fist of clenching, bruising tightness across his chest. God, he missed Jess, and the good memories were so much worse than just the abstract finality of her absence that was such a part of him now.

Somehow, over the course of their too-brief time together Jess had been able to maintain that indefinable female mystique that used to send him into a frenzy of needing to touch her, of trying to penetrate its core when he was inside her, but she'd also made him so comfortable in the sheltering embrace of her love and approval that they could talk about things like women's random nipple sensations being different than men's dicks getting hard because they didn't necessarily signal arousal or even get interpreted that way like a morning boner could for a guy. Sam had always figured that at least part of his fascination with that kind of revelation came from growing up in such a masculine world, and Jess had mixed a matter-of-fact bluntness with playfully teasing him for how eagerly he absorbed any little tidbits of entree she offered into the secret sisterhood of femininity. He'd loved it, basked in the privilege as tangible proof of their connection, and losing all of that too as part of losing _her_ hurt unbearably every time it blindsided him with the betrayal of his own brain accessing such treasures without his consent.

Sam couldn't help wondering how much of himself, of the man he'd wanted to be with Jess, had been lost along with her. It almost didn't matter that Dean was right when he'd said that Jess wouldn't want him to mourn her for the rest of his life and never have contact with another woman again because the way Sam's life had unfolded and also unraveled since limited his options so severely that a fear had started to grow, despite the dark barren place he tried to push it to in his head, that even just the unavoidable fact of physical desire was steadily twisting and perverting within him through exposure to the same tangle of resentment and self-loathing and despair that the rest of his motivations had gotten knotted up with and that Ruby had been so successful at twining her fingers through and pretending to soothe.

Just when Sam had given up on trying to pimp out his apparently-worthless soul in exchange for Dean's, when he couldn't get so much as a kiss from any crossroads demon, Ruby had come along and spread her legs because she was willing to make him an even worse offer. She'd taunted him into whoring himself for the emotional equivalent of a few rocks of crack, into offering the slow death of what was left of his self-respect in return for the brief jags of brutal pleasure that could be had from surrendering to the poison vengeance that were all he had left to look forward to, and he'd fucked her with every last drop of the impotent rage and futility that was swirling around with the liquor and doing its own fair share of rotting his guts.

Then, he'd fucked Cara, and that wasn't him being deliberately coarse because it was only using the right term for it. In her case he'd done it partly because she was smart and funny and had made sure he could see quite a bit of that sexy sheer bra she was wearing from leaving at least two extra buttons undone on her shirt while she ever-so-bluntly breathed her intentions right in his ear, but mainly because she only wanted what he had to give. It hadn't seemed his place to tell her that the heavy partying and the fleeting thrills of exhibitionistic stranger-fucking might very well turn her cleverly-phrased wryness into a slow-settling bitterness as it led her down a different route that still ended up right where he was now, which was asking himself if the person he used to want to be was gone forever or if there was some feeble shred of hope left that he could get that Sam back someday, the one who'd wanted to marry Jess and let her squeeze his hand as hard as she needed to while she gave birth to their babies.

Shaking it off, he decided to give himself a break, for once anyway, because there weren't any answers to be had tonight and because his mind was such a minefield any more that he knew he really had lost all perspective on this subject and so many others too that he couldn't possibly figure out what his reaction to Amy meant. The fact that he felt so guilty suggested that it didn't mean his view of women as a species had radically changed from yesterday to today at least, so he took a deep breath and reflexively started to say a prayer for her when he stopped short.

Somewhere along the way, after everything that had gone wrong with the angels, he'd stopped praying altogether. Sam didn't remember deciding not to do it, just that a couple of times he'd started to and then felt weird about it and let it go. Still, it had to be God or someone else really powerful who thought he was worth the effort who pulled him along with Dean out of that church and into the airplane rather than just saving Dean and leaving him there to die instead, so maybe it wouldn't hurt to be just a little grateful for that even if he had no way of knowing who was responsible. He understood that the not knowing for sure was the whole point of faith, and while he didn't feel right considering this puny little impulse as worthy to be called _that_ just yet, it was _something_ anyway, so Sam prayed that Amy would be okay and that someday soon somebody who cared about her would be able to get her out of the life before it destroyed her completely, and then, at the end, when he whispered out loud, "Thank you," he meant it for himself too.

_And I can feel the Sweet Illusion coming_  
_Sweet Confusion, honey_  
_Sweet Illusion coming down_  
_And I ain't got nothing but love for you_  
_Love for you I can't use_  
_And lonely nights multiplied by the blues_  
_That I can't resolve_

(Part Two)

_You and I used to shine like a jewel_  
_But time's been nothing to us but cruel_  
_So play it out and never played the fool_  
_Cause you'll lose every time_

"Trick or Treat, slut."

"Gotta be tricks, right? Like turning tricks, get it?"

Little more than a chuckle and some imbecilic smirks greeted this weak effort. So, why _not_ fall back on a moldy classic when it was still just as ugly as the day the first Neanderthal grunted it?

"Who'd be stupid enough to pay for it when she gives it out for free, right Eddie?"

"Whatever. Let's just go, guys. We're gonna be late for practice."

Eddie Holtower cast a quick glance back over his shoulder as he followed his pack of wit-challenged friends in the direction of the football practice field. The dark-haired girl they'd subjected to their lame attempt at a seasonal version of what was most likely their usual brand of cruelty kept her gaze level, refusing to give them any outward sign that their barbs had held any sting for her. None of them noticed the new kid who'd been cutting across the tree-lined vacant lot that had given him an unsought front row seat for the whole revolting tableau.

Sam Winchester couldn't read the expression in the apparent pack leader's eyes when he'd looked back at the girl, but it wasn't an obvious sneer or typical jock bravado. Sam hadn't been around long enough yet to suss out the formal pecking order, but he did know that Eddie was the quarterback of the football team and a senior at that, which in Sam's experience was usually enough to put a guy at the top if he wanted it.

Allowing a few more seconds to be sure the guys were far enough away to make a return engagement unlikely in case they'd want to turn their attentions to a new target like his own skinny sophomore self for instance, Sam ran a hand through his hair to push the messiest strands back out of his eyes and stepped out of the trees and onto the sidewalk.

Normally, he'd be at least a little happy that a hunt had landed them for awhile somewhere with four seasons, so he'd have a chance to take in some late-October color like the range of muted red and burnt orange and smoky brown the trees around Brockton, VA were sporting today, but right now the unbroken line of trees was unkindly serving to turn this side street into a mini wind tunnel that chose this moment to prove it as a chilly gust tinged with chillier damp rolled over Sam and effortlessly conquered the hand-me-down sweat shirt and thin, faded army jacket that had both paid a few too many visits to the laundromat to offer him much protection.

Unable to repress a shiver, Sam walked faster, face averted as if it would help, and he was just deciding that fifteen was plenty old enough to say no to the haircut his dad was sure to be demanding any day now when he looked back up in time to see that his quickened pace, born of a growing desire to get inside out of the gray cold that was giving over from damp to actual mist, had almost caught him up to the fiercely striding boots of Dacey Henderson, the girl that collection of heartless jockstraps had just been hassling. She was in his ten o'clock study hall, which was the reason he knew her by name. Otherwise, there was no way he'd know even that much about a girl two grades ahead of him, no matter her reputation. Because that was the thing: Dacey did have a reputation that fell generally in line with the tenor of the insults from earlier.

Stifling the uncharitable twinge of annoyance that slowing his strides to avoid overtaking her had inspired because the rational part of his brain knew that it wasn't actually her fault or any grand conspiracy of the elements to freeze his insignificant-to-the-universe ass off, Sam wondered if there was any truth to the rumors. Before he'd had more than a moment to ponder, he got unmistakable confirmation that the universe assuredly had no ill intentions to spare for him this day because it had clearly decided to go for broke on Dacey instead. In her haste to quit the scene of one humiliation, she'd tripped somehow and quite literally landed face down in another as Sam watched her go sprawling into a heap on the sidewalk.

Stopped in his tracks by uncertainty, Sam's body decided on its own to start moving again when he saw that she wasn't. The chest-tightening ache of helplessness only expanded as he stood over her, now that he was struck silent by the unwelcome observation that she'd only seemed motionless from a distance. Instead, her shoulders were shaking slightly in a motion that he all-too-easily recognized from seeing it on various civilians they'd rescued from whatever variety of goblin or ghoul was on the rampage on a given day, occasions that always led the nearest Winchester to murmur incoherently that everything was going to be all right, punctuated with awkward pats or even hugs when the surviving victim was so inclined.

Thus, falling back on hunter instinct, Sam crouched next to Dacey, placed the fingertips of one hand lightly on her shoulder, and opened his mouth to ask," Are you –"

But he never got the rest of the question out because, with the speed and ferocity of a wounded animal, the girl scuttled out of his reach and into her own crouch, her eyes clouded by the expected unshed tears and the lingering daze of the unexpected fall, palms of both hands pressed against the concrete for balance as the weight of her book bag shifted heavily to one side, eliciting a pained wince as she spat at him, "Don't you touch me!"

Startled by this turn of events, Sam still found hunter mode the best option and so offered in his calmest, most carefully non-threatening tone, "I won't. I'm not movin' a muscle here. Just wondering if you can make it okay to get wherever you were going on your own."

Without answering, Dacey rose slowly to her feet. Sam could see traces of blood oozing from her palms where she'd no doubt put her hands out to catch her fall. There were faint palm prints in red on the sidewalk where she'd just been steadying herself, and as his eyes moved upward he saw a patch of the same color soaking through the ripped denim of her jeans over one knee that must have taken the rest of the brunt of her landing. He saw no signs of injury, not physical anyway, to her face or head, which was good, but, just as he feared, when she went to put weight on the leg with the bloody knee, a gasp of pain escaped her lips, and a flash of fear crowded the anger in her eyes as she glared at him.

Well, at first he thought the expression was meant for him, and maybe a part of it was, but then the realization hit him that she was looking past him back in the direction that Eddie and the goons had headed, and, without further calculation, he offered, "They won't be back any time soon. I heard 'em say they were going to football practice, walking clichés that they are."

Though the wariness didn't leave her eyes, the corners of Dacey's mouth turned up a little, her lips cracking open enough to reveal a glimpse of white teeth and a hint of dimple in one cheek, not that Sam meant to notice it.

"You're the new kid, right?"

If only he had a dollar for every time he'd heard that one, but it was easier just to keep things simple, so he only replied, "Yeah, Sam Winchester."

"You're in Hodge's study hall, right?"

"Yeah."

"Dacey, Dacey Henderson ."

"I know."

The brief thaw almost as suddenly started to freeze over, "What do you mean,'I know?" sliced back at him, a blade coated in ice.

"Um, well, Hodge may be an ancient geezer, but he does call the roll before he nods off most days."

His quick thinking earned Sam the blush of color staining Dacey's pale cheeks just before another gust from the wind tunnel effect fanned a curtain of brown waves across them to briefly block her face from his view, and Sam hoped that meant that whatever goofy look might have just graced his own in response was also invisible to her because, reputation or not, true or not, she was still a pretty girl, and it didn't really even matter that she _was_ pretty because nobody deserved to be taunted for whatever damn problem those morons had with whatever the hell they were so insecure about in themselves, the assholes. But, all the same, Sam did think she was awfully pretty, hence the goofiness that he hoped wouldn't linger and foil any chance he might have to at least make sure she got home okay.

* * *

Sam plunged both hands into the scalding dishwater, steam rising from the heated suds that instantly banished the lingering cold and stiffness from their bones, the effects of the drizzly autumn day increased by the extra distance he'd covered by walking Dacey to her door, and it was to her door and no further. He felt vaguely silly that his whole body had gone on high alert just from having her arm resting across his shoulders as he'd helped her try to balance her gait to protect her injured knee. She was a pretty tough girl though because they hadn't gotten too far before she was forcing herself to gradually increase the weight on the affected leg until she was barely limping by the time they got to her house. She hadn't moved her arm though, and Sam could somehow feel its absence now that he was alone again.

Her being that close had meant breathing in the leather scent of her jacket mixed with whatever was in her perfume that made Sam think of some exotic herbal tea, citrus maybe and spices, but sweet too. He didn't know why, but the mingled fragrances reminded him of those kids' cartoon TV specials they showed every year for fall holidays like Halloween and Thanksgiving, like what the houses of normal families with apple pie lives must smell like this time of year.

_"Winchester , like the rifle? I guess you catch some heat for that, huh? Those kinda guys don't have much imagination for sure."_

_"Yeah, sometimes, I guess. Mostly, I ignore it. Not usually around long enough to bother caring. Waste of time and energy."_

_"I get it. I was the new kid myself this past summer. It went okay at first, but then everything changed after school started."_

Sam had for sure wanted to hear about what had happened to change Dacey's situation, but he hadn't dared ask. He was afraid he did already know, and he figured she wouldn't want to talk about it. Frowning, he scrubbed the frying pan in his hands a little harder. The non-stick coating was worn in places, and the scrambled eggs had left a sticky residue that hadn't soaked off. Dean's eggs were always softer and fluffier without being runny, but Sam always seemed to get distracted and over-cook them.

If Dean were here, he'd probably give him crap about letting the smell of a girl's perfume stir up all these conflicted emotions: the sense of shared loneliness, that he was maybe only imagining, of a couple of outcasts with secrets they didn't want to tell anyone, Sam's oft-buried but stubbornly lingering nostalgia for a mythical home he'd never known, but also the excitement that being touching-close to Dacey had awakened, thoughts of other kinds of touching, the dirty thrill of knowing, or at least supposing, that she had let somebody touch her and more, but then came the shame for feeding lust and longing on something that had ended up causing her pain. It was wrong and unworthy, but it was also mixed in there with the other feelings, and Sam wasn't quite ready to stop daydreaming about having his fingers in her silky hair and of holding her close to him because she wanted him to and with no banged-up knee as any part of the equation.

* * *

Despite his avid daydreaming the evening before, Sam didn't actually harbor any real -world expectations about himself and Dacey. He wasn't going to say or do anything to subject himself to that kind of abject humiliation. He got enough of that sort of thing from Dean's occasional teasing and just by comparison to his brother's easy prowess charming "the ladies" as Dean put it. Still, he'd thought he caught her staring at him a couple of times in study hall but had decided he either had a smudge on his face or that it didn't mean anything except that he happened to be in her line of sight to whatever she _was_ looking at.

Instead, as he was getting the books for his homework assignments together at his locker, he discovered to his shock that he hadn't been imagining things after all.

"So, Winchester- "

"Sam."

"Okay, _Sam_. Advanced Calculus? You must be one of those mathletes, right?"

Advanced Calculus had been the subject he was working on in study hall, and that book was already in his bag now, so she _had_ been watching him.

"Well, I don't know about that."

"I'm sorry. I wasn't being sarcastic. I was just wondering. . . . Oh, never mind. You're probably too busy."

"No, wait. What were you gonna ask me? It's fine. I have time."

"Great, Sam," he thought. "Why not just stick out your tongue and pant like a little puppy dog too, for crap's sake?"

"Okay, well, compared to you I'm like math illiterate. I'm more into English and History, but, anyway, I have to survive Algebra 2 to graduate, and the exam next Mon. counts for half our semester grade. To stay on Honor Roll I need to get at least a B on this test. I've been fine up until the stuff we started covering recently, but I was hoping maybe you could help me study, tutor me, you know. I can pay you, not much, but—"

"You don't have to pay me."

"You'll do it? But you have to at least let me make you dinner."

"Oh, you want to do it at your house?"

"Why? Is that a problem?"

It was most definitely _not_ a problem. The thought of spending several hours alone with Dacey and in her home at that, the intimacy of it, had Sam's heart knocking against his ribs and his "inner Dean" simultaneously mocking him heartlessly for it. And dinner too, apparently to be cooked by Dacey herself?

"No, not at all. "

"Good. I thought maybe your parents had some rule where they had to meet me first or something."

"No, nothing like that. My, uh, family is out of town anyway."

"Okay, that works out. My mom is visiting my Aunt Janie until Sun., so there won't be any hovering parental unit. How's tomorrow after school? I live walking distance."

"I know."

"Right. Of course you do. You were sweet enough to walk me home after I nearly bit your head off. Sorry about that."

"Understandable after those guys were such jerks to you. But that's fine. Tomorrow is fine."

Dacey's expression clouded briefly while he was speaking, so he was instantly sorry for even having mentioned the ugly scene he'd witnessed. Maybe she saw the flicker of regret on his face because her own registered what looked like cautious gratitude, and Sam made an extra effort to paste on a nonspecific expression now, so she wouldn't read there that he was seething on the inside, seething at Eddie and his idiot friends for all that they'd done to make her doubt that people could be kind and helpful without ulterior motives.

He might never find out the details of what exactly had happened and certainly wasn't going to ask her outright, but that didn't stop him from resenting the injustice of it all on her behalf and from wishing there was some way he could avenge her honor. And there was no doubt in his mind that she was the wronged party, if for no other reason than for his memory of Eddie's face as she'd been walking away. Whatever made Eddie look back at Dacey wasn't a clear conscience, that was for certain.

Since the role of avenging knight-errant wasn't available, then helping her pass a math test would have to do. The fact that there was nothing he'd rather do with his own time than spend it alone with her didn't qualify as an ulterior motive, did it? Well, at least not an intentional one because he couldn't figure out how he was supposed to keep from feeling that way about it.

"I really appreciate this, Sam."

"No problem."

"Meet here tomorrow then?"

"Sure, I'll be here."

"Bye."

"Bye, Dacey."

* * *

"Vegetarian lasagna okay, Sam? We eat dairy but not meat, my mom and me."

Dacey was wearing a soft-looking rose pink sweater that did magical things with her dark hair and eyes and lent some color to her complexion, although some of that may have been from peering into the oven to check on the food.

Realizing that it was past time that he answered such a simple question, Sam got his mouth open finally.

"Yeah, that's fine. It smells great."

"Good. I hope you don't think I cheated on the dinner promise because my Mom left this already cooked for me. I just had to thaw and heat."

Dacey's smile was mischievous, and Sam would have forgiven her for any number of things when she was looking at him like that, but he managed to keep his cool, or at least he hoped so.

"No, Mom-cooked is just as good. My brother does most of the cooking at our place."

"Really? What about your Mom?"

"She died when I was a baby."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Sam. That's so sad."

"It's all right. Dean does all right."

Sam was grateful that Dacey proved insightful enough to get that he didn't want to talk about his family, especially not his mother's death, but even just thinking about it for the few seconds it took to answer her innocent inquiry opened up something that ached deep down, and the gratitude that followed bled over into the other warm feelings growing inside him for her, unbidden and getting very close to unwanted because they were "_Unrequited feelings,_" he savagely reminded himself, hoping to sear the ache of vulnerability back shut again, like trying to cauterize a wound before it could fester and hurt him more from getting his hopes up.

"Well, it's carb-loading night at the Henderson's because we're having garlic bread too and salad. You like Ranch or Italian?"

"Both."

Sam had answered without filtering, forgetting that he didn't usually like to invite comment on this foody quirk, maybe because Dean used to give him crap about it.

"Me too!"

And Dacey's grin this time undid all Sam's earlier work hardening his heart against her.

* * *

Sam kept trying to turn his attention back to the math book and the notes he was making for her, but it was a struggle not taking advantage of the opportunity afforded by Dacey having conked out a couple of hours after dinner to drink his fill of gazing at her when she couldn't catch him at it.

Then, he'd decide it would be worse if she _did_ wake up and catching him drooling over her, so he'd go back to note-making again.

"_Vicious cycle,_" he almost giggled to himself.

Maybe he was getting pretty tired too. Earlier on he'd moved to the floor, so he could write easier with his notebook on the coffee table. Pausing first only to stretch his arms up and back along with the curve of his spine as it arched into the pleasure of the movement, Sam stood up and looked down at the sleeping form half-sprawled on the sofa. The view improved with proximity, so Sam framed the image of her hair scattered across a pillow and dark lashes and curving lips in his mind to take back to their short-term leased apartment with him. He wouldn't even let himself dignify the place as any kind of real home.

A fleeting sense of déjà vu passed over him as he reached out to touch Dacey's shoulder. He hoped this time would be different from the cornered animal reaction he'd gotten that first time they met.

"Hey, Dacey. You fell asleep."

Without opening her eyes, she treated him to a glimpse of the dimple in her left cheek, and how was he supposed to not have memorized by now which side that dimple was on?

"Carb-coma."

"Getcha every time."

Dacey draped the back of her hand in front of her eyes as she wobbled into an upright position, which Sam found ridiculously adorable.

"Sound sleeper, huh?"

"When I'm gorked out on lasagna and three pieces of garlic bread, yeah. Other times, not so much."

Maybe because he had lost the battle with himself over minutely observing every flicker of expression change on Dacey's face, Sam saw the troubled cloud that settled there for just a few seconds before she shook her head ever so slightly and looked straight into his soul with an almost-convincing smile superimposed over whatever nightmare or sorrow she had actually just been thinking about.

Then, she reached out and picked up his notebook from the coffee table.

"Oh, Sam. You didn't have to do this. It's already so nice of you to help me–"

"It's nothing. The examples in the textbook are worthless, so I just wrote down some better ones that are more helpful in understanding the mathematical principles involved."

"You _are_!" Dacey started laughing.

"What? I'm what?"

"You _are_ a mathlete! I knew it."

Sam didn't need a mirror to know that he was blushing profusely. A torrent of protest to the contrary would only make things worse. He knew that much from living with Dean, so he just smiled, weakly.

"No, no, Sam. I'm not laughing _at_ you. You're the sweetest thing–"

There was no hiding the involuntary wince.

"Oh, I'm sorry," and Dacey succeeded admirably in stifling her laughter. "I know. I know. Guys hate to be called 'sweet' or 'pretty', even when they're both."

_And_ the mischief was back lighting up her eyes and adding at least twenty beats per minute to Sam's racing heart at hearing her compliments, even if she was right that they were embarrassingly girly. Dean would have peed his pants with glee by now if he could have witnessed this conversation.

"Okay, I'll stop. But, seriously Sam, I owe you big-time for all your help, and I do really appreciate it."

"No big deal. I'm glad to help, really."

She was still smiling at him, but the smile had morphed into something entirely more difficult to withstand because it was tinged with sadness and gratitude, and all Sam had to do to figure out why was to remember the ugly scene he'd witnessed and to picture her making her way alone through the halls at school, much like himself, even if their reasons for being ignored were different. To tell the truth, Sam knew now for sure that being ignored must hurt less than what was really going on for Dacey. She wasn't just being ignored; she was being shunned. It was too much for his idiotically-smitten heart to bear even as he could feel the silence stretching on and on, yet he found himself tongue-tied until Dacey finally managed to speak.

"Well, uh, it's gettin' pretty late, I guess."

"Oh. Yeah, it is."

Sam welcomed the chance to look at something other than Dacey for once as he gathered up his things and stuffed them into his backpack.

"I'll walk you out."

"Okay."

Then, the door was open, and he was stepping out into the night, well technically the well-lit porch, and then it would be off to the darkness of that empty apartment.

"Good night, Dacey. Thanks so much for dinner. It was great."

Before she replied, she lightly grasped his arm, her fingers warm and soft like he'd known they'd be if she ever touched him, something he'd thought would never happen again unless by accident or unless she made a habit of falling over all the time, which seemed unlikely, and now he was babbling to himself, but at least it wasn't out loud.

"Wait, Sam. Tomorrow night's Halloween. We don't usually get a lot of kids trick-or-treating, but it's fun to hang out and watch _Rocky Horror_ and take the excuse to pig out on candy and stuff. Anyway, do you already have plans?"

"No, I–"

"I mean, it's Sat. night too. Maybe we can study a little, but mainly watch scary movies, and I can make popcorn. Do you even like Halloween?"

Sam _didn't_ like Halloween. How could he with the family business being what it was? But just this once maybe he could pretend it was all fake, so he could spend more time alone with this girl who was going to rip his heart into a thousand tiny pieces when she eventually made it so clear that he couldn't fail to accept it that she didn't remotely feel the same way about him that he already felt about her. She wanted to be his friend though, and, as much as it sucked that that was all, being her friend was something _she_ needed from him, and he was powerless to resist.

"I've never seen _Rocky Horror_. Isn't there singing and dancing in it?"

Sam feigned skepticism, but he was going to say yes. Dacey deserved a little teasing though after calling him sweet and pretty. He was still pretending that the thought that she found him at least a little attractive wasn't the thrill of his lifetime so far.

"Well, it's sort of a parody musical. I mean, it's a parody of 1950's horror movies in musical form, but the subtext is more overt, the sexual subtext anyway. Hey, on the other hand, it's got gore and a motorcycle and some other guy stuff, like Susan Sarandon in her underwear, if you like that sort of thing."

"A motorcycle, huh? I can't picture a guy dressed up in a corset and fishnets riding a motorcycle."

Dacey smacked Sam lightly on the same arm she'd just been holding so gently, but he knew he'd asked for it. This was really fun.

"Sam Winchester, you sneaky thing. You _have_ seen it."

Sam grinned. "Not the whole thing, just bits and pieces when my brother watches it. He's actually the sneaky one because he only does when he thinks nobody's noticing. I caught him mouthing the words to that "Time Warp' song once, but he mainly watches for the hot actress in her underwear. He has a thing for Susan Sarandon's um, assets, I guess you'd say."

"I think she's gorgeous too. So, does this mean you'll come over?"

"Sure, I was just messin' with ya. What time?"

"How about 8:00? You'll miss most of the trick-or-treaters that way."

"Okay. See you then."

And Sam knew he was crazy to be so excited, to be anticipating another night alone with Dacey like it was a real date or something, but he was tired of fighting it. If he didn't make a fool out of himself, she'd never know anyway. So, all he had to do was play it reasonably cool, and whatever pain he was in for later could stay his own little secret.

* * *

Well, so much for playing it cool, but it wasn't remotely his fault. Sam was a little out of his depth, okay a _lot_ out of his depth. He felt like a creeper sitting there in the dark watching Dacey sleep, but he was afraid to leave her alone considering she'd been pretty wasted and had more or less passed out before he'd carried her to what he was reasonably sure was her bedroom.

Things had seemed fine when he first got there, but then he had to admit she'd seemed a little different than the night before, a little hyper, maybe, but he hadn't really caught on to it right away.

_"How did you know?"_

_She was beaming at him like he'd done something really amazing and not just having had enough manners not to show up empty-handed._

_"You got 'em out of the vending machine at school one time, so I figured you liked 'em," he shrugged._

_"Skittles are my favorite. Thanks, Sam. Come on in."_

Other than that easily-overlookable slight excess of politeness or whatever Sam had originally chalked it up to, things proceeded normally with Dacey waving him back to the couch when he'd offered to help as she set them up with popcorn and a bowl of the rainbow-colored candies along with another of assorted mini-sized chocolate bars. Right after that the first sign of trouble appeared, but Sam had easily stifled the slight twang of anxiety he felt, probably because it was no competition for how happy he was to be here again so soon with her.

He was using all his energy at that time to squelch instead the loopy grin that his face wanted to wear while he took in the over-sized t-shirt she was wearing emblazoned with an image of Charlie Brown from the Halloween show wearing the ghost costume with the multiple eyes cut out of a bed sheet due to the hapless cartoon boy having sadly failed at wielding scissors before the further humiliation of later being completely shut out of all the treat side of the trick-or-treating process, aptly summarized by the slogan on the t-shirt: "I got a rock." If the t-shirt hadn't been distraction enough, her lower half clad in black leggings that clung to every lovely curve would have been plenty.

So, he was cursing himself now for overlooking the warnings, both subtle and more obvious, that Dacey wasn't herself.

_"We have soda, OJ, wine coolers, um, wild berry, and water, of course."_

_"Soda, please. I can get it."_

_"I'm already up, but you can get your own refills later, deal?"_

_"Sure."_

Dacey had returned promptly with the soda for Sam, but he'd only noticed her half-empty wine cooler bottle when she set it down on a coaster on the coffee table next to the bowl of Skittles. He'd barely registered the fact that Dacey had started drinking alcohol some time before his arrival when the return of the teasing tone from last night completely captured his full attention.

_"Okay, Sam. Since you're a Rocky Horror virgin, I'll teach you all the responses to yell at the TV, but I didn't do the props, mainly because I don't want to vacuum up rice or sit around in a damp shirt from water pistols. We'll do that next time, okay?"_

Lost in the wave of giddy joy that the mention of a "next time" had swept over his entire body, he barely noticed that, no sooner than she'd started the movie playing, she'd raised the wine cooler bottle to her lips and knocked back several swallows in succession. Then, as the movie played out, he'd enjoyed it well enough, but mostly he thrilled at how much Dacey seemed to be enjoying it, the pleasure seemingly born in equal measure from both interacting with the film itself, one eyebrow arched wryly as she belted out, "Where's your neck?" each time the Criminologist appeared, one of many other and sundry call-backs to the oddly-paced dialogue, some of them pretty racy, as well as her frequent glances to catch _his_ reactions, several of which elicited outright giggling on Dacey's part.

She seemed to get particular amusement from Sam's involuntary head tilt and grimace at the moment when Dr. Frank-n-furter threw off his shiny cape and first revealed his ensemble of corset and fishnet stockings and platform heels. Sam had neglected to mention the shoes when he'd joked around with Dacey the night before.

Now that he thought about it, he felt like the commercial for that vegetable juice where everybody smacked themselves in the forehead for forgetting to drink it instead of downing the actual vegetables themselves, vegetable also being an appropriate description of his state of mind over the course of the movie for not having noticed that Dacey was getting hammered on wine coolers. She had seemed fine when she got up and danced to the _Time Warp_ song, not stumbling or wobbling at all, but then that scene occurred pretty early in the show.

Sam sighed. There was no point in second guessing it all now, but his face went red, one part embarrassment and one part shame, at remembering that before he'd caught on to Dacey's situation he'd been feeling a little aroused by all the sexual stuff in the movie, a little uncomfortable with the gay stuff, mostly from unfamiliarity, because he wasn't homophobic or anything; how could he be as an amateur scientist and _mathlete_, and here Sam allowed himself an eye roll. There was also the part where each time Dacey came back from the kitchen she seemed to sit a little closer to him on the sofa, finally leaning against his side with her head on his shoulder.

_"Yeah, genius. Pay attention to that part about 'coming back from the kitchen' because it should have been 'coming back from the kitchen with another wine cooler.'"_

He'd only noticed finally, just before the crucial moment, when he went to fetch himself another soda, his mouth dry from popcorn and sugar and possibly a little mouth breathing over the aforementioned sexy activities in the film. In his defense, there had been a freakin' _orgy_ scene, for Pete's sake. When he tossed his soda can in the trash, it clinked off glass, and the sound caught his attention. He'd counted four wine cooler bottles right on top of the container, but there was no way to know how many Dacey had actually drunk.

Uneasy, Sam had sat down with a little distance between himself and Dacey and tried to be casual popping open the soda and setting it down because he was also trying to get a look at Dacey's face and body language without her noticing. Before he could formulate a clear hunter-in-training observation, she'd made her move. Sidling over closer to him, she'd taken his hand between both of hers and started petting it gently and muttering under her breath, her gaze downcast.

_"Pretty fingers, pretty eyes. Such a nice Sam too."_

_"Hey, Dacey. You feelin' okay?"_

_Her eyes met his suddenly, and Sam was taken aback at the incongruity that they were both dulled by alcohol yet simultaneously burning into his own with an intensity that was overwhelming. This was starting to become a pattern, his being overcome with empathy or some such mush whenever Dacey revealed some measure of her hidden, vulnerable side to him._

_"Fine. Such a sweet Sam. Soft…"_

_Here her fingers sought out his mouth, trailing lightly over his lips, tracing a vaguely circular path around them. The sensation was so overpowering in the gentleness of its transmission that he was paralyzed and silent, unable to open the orifice to any other purpose for the exact amount of time it took for her to read his inaction as consent, which was perfectly understandable because when she replaced her fingertips with her own lips, Sam let her do it, let her kiss him and kissed her back, his own fingers instinctively seeking the silky hair that, until that moment, had only inadvertently brushed against his jacketed arm with maybe a strand or two blowing against his cold-numbed cheek that first day he'd helped her home._

_Sam was anything but cold or numb as the kiss progressed, transported and responsive as she pressed her wild-berry-and-Skittles-flavored tongue into his eagerly-opened mouth, some primitive part of his brain lulling him with chemical responses to the dart points of stimulation stabbing at multiple bodily sites in succession, the two sharpest of which were the throbbing pressure of his racing heart and an entirely different yet also a throbbing pressure just behind the zipper of his jeans._

It had only been when he felt Dacey's fingers traveling down his side and then across his hip bone honing in on that zipper herself that Sam recovered his sanity. He was certain that he'd never have let anything happen, the most convincing evidence of that the fact that he hadn't, but he also simply knew for sure that he wouldn't have done anything but the kissing. There was no way he would have taken advantage of her inebriated state, but Sam even felt guilty that things had gotten as far as they did.

Worse, there was no fixing it that their first kiss had been alcohol-inspired. Now he might never know if she really wanted to kiss him for _him_ or not. Instead, she'd gone limp almost as soon as he'd stopped the forward progress of that seeking hand, and he'd carried her here where she was now, out like the proverbial light, having taken most of the joy of that first kiss with her.


	2. Chapter 2

Note: Here's the second part. If you struggled through reading the first part, you may have thought to yourself, "It sure would be nice if there was something to show when there was going to be a time shift or a flashback starting." To that, I say a big "oops." I posted this story on Livejournal first and used a partial line of asterisks for section separators, and this site just erases those when you post them in a document. I've gone back and fixed it now, so there are dividers between sections in the first chapter here now. Sorry about that. There's one more part after this one, and I'll be posting it in a day or two. Thank you for reading.

* * *

"Sam. Wake up."

"What? Are you okay?"

It was still dark, and Sam was a little woozy, but already his mind was racing with the possibilities: did she need to vomit? _Had _she maybe already done so and need help cleaning up? But it was nothing like that.

"I'm an idiot, but I'm okay. My head feels like the entire population of Transylvania is Time Warping inside my brain, but it's all right. I brought it on myself."

"Oh. Good. I mean, I'm glad you're okay."

Her voice was earnest and apologetic in the dimness.

"I really hate to ask you this because it's gonna seem so rude, but do you think you could make it home okay?"

"Now? What time is it?"

"It's a little before four."

"Yeah, sure. I'll be fine, if you're sure you'll be."

"I'm so sorry, Sam. I just need you to go. I, it's just I can't… Nobody can see you walking out in the daylight. Everybody already thinks–"

"It's okay, Dacey. You don't have to explain."

"But I want to, Sam. Just not right now. Tomorrow. Later today, I guess. I'll call you, I promise. I'm sorry."

"I understand. It's all right."

"You don't. Not everything, but thank you for saying it anyway. Really."

"What do you normally take for headaches?"

"What?"

"Before I go, I'll get you something for the hangover, some water too."

"Oh, thank you. You're right. My head's on fire. Bathroom cabinet, right through there. Ibuprofen."

Sam retrieved the pill bottle but didn't see a cup or glass, so he headed to the kitchen for the water. When he returned, Dacey was sitting up, but she looked distinctly unwell.

"One or two?"

"I think this calls for two, please."

Sam handed over the two ibuprofen and the water glass. Dacey swallowed the pills and gingerly forced down a few extra swallows of the water before carefully placing the glass on the bedside table.

"My mom did teach me manners to walk guests to the door, but I don't think—"

"No, please, don't even worry about it. You just get some sleep. Keep makin' yourself drink the water if you can. It'll help."

Dacey didn't ask him for the source of his information on coping with hangovers, and Sam didn't volunteer that he'd learned what little he knew from observing his father's occasional overindulgences along with one or two of Dean's.

"Thanks, Sam. I'll try."

"Oh, and I put the wastebasket right there on the floor on the right where you can reach it just in case. Hope not, but just in case."

"That was good thinking. I really appreciate it and also that it's dark, so you can't see how awful I must look. Not that that matters."

"I'm sure you don't. Anyways, I'll let you get that rest now and not hover around. Good night."

"Good night, Sam. Be safe getting home."

There was that word, _home_.

"I will. Sleep well."

* * *

_"Heeey, Candy-girl. Bet you do taste sweet. I'll lick up all your sugar. You'd like that, wouldn't you? Then, you can suck my candy stick. You know you wanna suck me–"_

* * *

"He called me 'Candy', Sam. Nobody even knows my given name is Candace, but he knew somehow or guessed. I don't even know. But that's what set me off with the booze. Pretty stupid, huh?"

Dacey hadn't told him exactly what the freak had said, but he could guess. The surge of fury was so loud in his ears that he could barely hear anything else, but he took a breath and made himself focus on helping her now instead of going off into some revenge fantasy about beating the guy to a pulp if he could find out who he was.

It had to be one of those football jerks, but probably not Eddie, since she would have recognized his voice. Too bad she hadn't thought to report the call, but he knew she just wanted so badly for all of it to end, to be over finally. At least she'd called _him_ like she promised. Maybe just talking about it would help keep it from tearing her up inside.

"No, not stupid. Perfectly understandable, but if it ever happens again, call me instead, okay? I don't know what I can do to help exactly, but I can try."

"There you go again being so nice to me when I kicked you out of my house in the dead of night. I just didn't know what else to do."

"Don't worry about that. It's okay."

"I thought it was my Mom calling to check in on me, ya know? Then, I was so surprised I didn't hang up right away. I just hope… Never mind."

"Hope what? You can tell me. I… I hope you know you can trust me, Dacey."

"I believe you, Sam. It's just hard to relive it all again–"

"Then, you don't have to. It's okay."

"I want to. I was gonna say I hope I cut the call off before he heard me…"

Seconds ticked by, and Sam thought maybe their connection had been lost.

"Dacey? You still there?"

The heavy breath that came through the receiver broke Sam's heart, but then it was hers to break and had been almost from the moment he met her.

"Yeah, I'm here. I screamed, Sam. Loud, like he was right there in the house with me."

Saying those words tipped her over the edge, and she began to cry. It was unbearable.

"I'm so sorry. It's okay. It'll be okay."

"Sam?"

"Yeah, I'm here."

He heard a deep inhale and shuddery exhale as Dacey tried to recover herself.

"Can you come over?"

"I know. You think you killed all the brain cells with the Algebra you need for that test tomorrow in 'em, so you need me to go over it again, right?"

Sam held his breath. Was it too soon for a goofy joke?

"Yeah, that's it. You see right through me."

Her voice was rough from crying, but she sounded a little better.

"It's two now. When will your Mom be home?"

"Some time this afternoon, but it's okay. She trusts me. You might have to meet her though. Guys hate that stuff."

"Not me. And Moms love mathletes."

"How can they help themselves?"

"Be right there."

"Thanks, Sam."

* * *

Lying in the dark with Dean snoring distractingly in the twin bed nearby, Sam's emotions were all over the place, but then why should now be any different? The job over, Dad and Dean were there in the apartment when he returned from Dacey's, and it wasn't that he wasn't happy to see them, to see that they were safe and well, but their presence was still a bit of a jolt out of the dream-world he hadn't intended on letting himself build, the one where he could stay here in Brockton and just be normal, but mainly so he could be with her, with Dacey. They were both still too keyed up, still juiced from the hunt, to quiz him any further when he said simply that he'd been studying with a friend. He had his book bag with him, so there wasn't any reason they should, but Sam knew it was much more than that for him.

He'd barely gotten in the door of her house and set the book bag on the floor before whatever line of brave chit-chat Dacey had been trying to cover with had trailed off, and he'd instinctively held out his arms. They'd sunk onto the sofa, a place that could have been fraught from their one-sidedly-drunken make-out session the night before, but it wasn't. She'd let him hold her, and he'd felt so many things, many of them physical, but none were overtly sexual.

That was how Sam knew for sure that he was ruined because it was all deeper than that, the swelling ache of tenderness and the primal protective instinct, and the anger-tinged sadness, all of it filling him to overflowing inside, so he'd tried to let it out bit by bit with stroking her hair and making soothing sounds.

Later, her mother, Claudia, had arrived home, and they'd ordered veggie pizza, and Sam hadn't been the least surprised that Dacey didn't say a word about the horrible phone call even though she shared that she and Sam had watched the movie together. The two of them had looked at each other in this connected way that he didn't know a word for and said, "Virgin" at the same time and then laughed, and he'd loved it because their laughter included him somehow, pulled  
him into their little circle.

He never wanted it to end because that was just it. There was one other emotion that wasn't so pleasant swimming around in his belly, and Dad and Dean coming back here only intensified it: it was guilt. Not only was he still confused about how the part of him that had taken a little sabbatical while he was helping her through this immediately-past crisis, the part that wanted her to be sober and willing and really wanting him to when, or more like _if_, he kissed her again and touched her, was ever going to be reconciled with the part that knew that just _that_ kind of activity was the source of her deepest pain, but there was also the other thing he knew that she didn't, that he hadn't told her yet.

As badly as he wanted to stay in the dream-world where he was a new student like she was, where he would at the very least finish out the school year with her, be her friend and confidant and protector and maybe, as long as it _was_ a dream-world, even her boyfriend, it was completely untrue. At any time his dad would get a call or put together the signs and indicators of another job, and Sam would be gone out of Dacey's life as suddenly and finally as the death it was going to feel like to him when it happened, so he had to tell her. The guilt demanded it even if it meant she'd be the one to cut him out of her life instead.

* * *

Mon. passed relatively quietly, and, since Dacey had to take the Algebra exam in the afternoon, Sam thought it was perfectly reasonable to postpone telling her about his family's propensity for frequent relocations. Instead, he reassured her that she'd do great on the test, and she couldn't have been sweeter when she thanked him yet again for his tutoring. Of course, Sam couldn't exactly revert to his usual standard self-deprecating reaction without undermining her belief that his efforts would prove successful, so he had to accept her gratitude with what he hoped was only a minor blush or two instead of verbal demurrals.

So, he wasn't thrilled to be greeted at the door of the next morning's study hall he shared with Dacey with news that his presence was requested in the Office. Since he knew he hadn't done anything to be in trouble over, he figured it was probably somebody checking up on his "incomplete" education records. With as many schools as he and Dean had attended over the years, there were a few gaps in the paper-work, and a new school almost always wanted to talk to him about it at some point. Still, it was annoying to have to wait to find out how Dacey thought she did on her math test from wasting time on this exercise that was likely to be nothing but paper shuffling that wouldn't amount to anything.

Sam approached the reception desk with a neutral expression carefully constructed to hide his irritation.

"Excuse me. I'm Sam Winchester. I was told somebody here wanted to see me."

"Yes, Sam. The Guidance Counselor, Mr. Davies, will be with you in a moment. Please have a seat."

The woman smiled at him genuinely enough, so Sam smiled back briefly and then sat down to wait. Since he had his book bag with him, he reached in and came out with his U.S. History textbook and decided to pass the time reading ahead on the next chapter they were going to cover instead of sitting there twiddling his thumbs. After a few moments of re-reading the same paragraph several times because his mind kept wandering to his curiosity about Dacey's math test and his real desire just to get back to Study Hall where he could be in the same room with her for that one hour of the day before it descended into boring Dacey-less routine, Sam looked up to discover that somebody was staring at him intently.

Maybe the staring had contributed to his inability to concentrate, but in any event the guilty party in question, and she had startled just slightly before looking away quickly, was another student, a somewhat-blandly pretty blonde, in Sam's opinion anyway, seeing as how he was currently a devotee to the beauty construct that put glossy dark hair at the top of the rankings, especially when it was complemented with toffee brown eyes that had flecks of green and gold in them that stood out more when the light was right, and boy he must have subjected Dacey to some pretty high-level-intensity staring himself if he'd made note of such details.

Anyway, now that he'd given up actually reading the textbook due to whatever combination of distractions had done the trick, he used pretending to continue reading as a cover for staring right back at the girl who'd been eying him so closely. She was tall and athletic-looking, her movements graceful as she walked around the table where she was organizing and sorting papers. When she strolled over to the Staff mailboxes, Sam realized she'd bean sorting their mail and that some of the colored papers must be memos and notices of various kinds.

It gave him a chance to study her while her back was turned, or, more accurately, to picture her face as linked to her form while he tried to figure out why she looked so familiar when he was sure he'd never met her. After a bit the flash of insight came: she was a cheerleader, on the varsity squad specifically, the ones who performed during school-hours pep rallies, since Sam had never attended a football game to see them in that capacity. The realization wasn't particularly helpful though because it told him nothing other than that there didn't seem to be a reason in the world why such a girl would spare him more than a passing glance.

"Becca, when you're finished there, I have the minutes ready from the faculty meeting. Will you sort those for me next, dear?"

The cheerful secretary had just provided Sam the girl's first name, not that it really mattered, but at least now he remembered her last name as well. She was Becca Allen, and she was a Senior like Dacey, and she was also one of the officers, Vice President maybe, of the Student Council here at East Brockton High. So, that meant she was popular enough and probably a pretty good student too, considering that it was generally true that those were the prerequisites for which students got the opportunities for working in a school's office during the school day.

* * *

The Guidance Counselor had ended up being an okay guy and had wanted to go over Sam's class choices, especially in math and computer science, for the upcoming semester, but his enthusiasm and helpfulness had been damaged in Sam's eyes by the fact that he'd taken up the whole hour, which meant that Sam didn't get to see Dacey at all for the rest of the school day, since they didn't have the same lunch period or any other classes together.

The only good thing about any of that was that it gave Sam the perfect excuse to call Dacey instead as he could make it seem like legitimate business to do with following up with her about the Algebra test. Once dinner was over and their dad was busy making notes and sketches in his journal about the hunt he and Dean had just successfully concluded, the subject of which had been a ghost afflicted with a curse connected to an obscure charm piece with markings on it indicating Celtic origin of some kind, and with it being Dean's turn to do the washing up, Sam seized the window of privacy to make his call.

How embarrassing was it that just listening to each ring while he waited for somebody to answer seemed to craft an interval to measure the acceleration of his heart rate in anticipation of hearing Dacey's voice? That and focusing on not saying anything stupid or overly-mathletey in the process of getting the supposed reason for his call out, not stuttering or sounding like a total doofus, were reasons enough to set his pulse racing.

Instead, Sam was thrown off for just a moment when an unfamiliar voice said, "Hello."

Almost immediately he figured out that it had to be Dacey's mother, but he hadn't been sure right away because her tone was so different from the bantering and welcoming one she'd adopted at their pizza dinner. She sounded tense, worried even.

"Hi, Ms. Henderson. It's Sam Winchester. I was calling to talk to Dacey, but, also, thanks for dinner the other night. It was really nice of you to include me."

Sam heard breath exhaling through the receiver, but it ended up being a sign of relief or something, which was a big relief for him too.

"Oh, Sam. We were happy to have you. You can call me Claudia. I'm sorry if I sounded off before. We've been getting strange phone calls, hang-ups. It makes me worry that somebody's trying to figure out our schedule because they want to break into the house or something. It's upsetting Dacey even more than me. Anyway, I'll get her for you. Nice speaking with you again, Sam. You'll have to come back for a home-cooked dinner soon. I'll let Dacey work out a date. Bye, Sam."

"Bye, Ms., I mean, Claudia. Thank you. That sounds great."

Well, now Sam wouldn't have to worry about whether or not to ask Dacey if she'd told her mother yet about the harassing phone calls because she clearly hadn't. Sam was pretty sure that the caller would only hang up without speaking when it wasn't Dacey answering the phone, which explained why her mother was the one answering it today.

"Hi, Sam."

When Dacey came on the line almost immediately, the thought was so fresh in his mind that it gave him the courage to bring it up with her as well.

"Hi, Dacey. I was just calling to see how you thought you did on the test, but your Mom sure sounded worried. I know it's hard to talk about, but maybe it would help her to know what's really going on, and maybe she could help you."

If Sam thought his heart was pounding before, then the time passing without a reply from Dacey set it into overdrive. Now he'd done it, overstepped the boundaries of the fragile trust he'd built up with her and ruined everything, but that wasn't it.

"No, Sam. I can't be upset with you for thinking so, but maybe you've just never been in this position before where having somebody else fight your battles for you only makes things worse, ends up hurting them instead of helping you."

On the contrary, this reaction from Dacey stung too, partly because he felt like he doubly understood what she meant because, not only did he have first-hand experience from the times that Dean had gotten punished for trying to intervene on Sam's behalf with their dad over some small rebellion that he'd dug his stubborn heels in about, but also due to the fact that he felt too awkward about keeping secret the kind of life he was rebelling _against_ to let Dacey offer him the commiseration she'd almost certainly extend if he did offer up some heavily-censored version of these feelings they had in common. It still didn't stop him from the hypocrisy of urging her to do what he couldn't though because he cared about her too much to balk at the twinges of guilt he surely deserved for adding another to the list of secrets he was keeping from her.

"Well, she could give you her sympathy and support though, and you know she'd want to. You shouldn't try to handle all of this alone."

"I'm not alone. I have you, Sam, to talk to, I mean. That's enough. It is."

Well, _now_ he really was ruined more than he'd already thought he was because the only way he could stand telling her about the Winchester nomad existence, a tale that probably should be told in person rather than on the telephone, was if he didn't stop at being just that somebody she could talk to for however long he was able to stay here in Brockton, and hearing her say it did things to his heart that made him glad they weren't face to face because he'd be sure to embarrass himself into oblivion if they were, but now he simply had to do something to put an end to all of this ugliness, and he'd have to risk exposing himself to some serious humiliation in the process, but not from Dacey.

* * *

The first sentence was a sing-song melody that he knew all too well and could counter with just the lifting of an eyebrow.

"Sammy has a girlfriend. One question there, Sam, does _she_ know anything about it, or is she only the girl of your, ya know, _dreams_?"

The graphic obscene gesture that Dean performed emphatically, timed to the last and equally-emphasized word in his query, miming the exact kind of dream he thought Sam would be having about Dacey, would normally only be mildly annoying too, but under the circumstances his eyes flashed a warning that Dean, even at the height of enjoying what he'd expected to be only the usual run-of-the-mill response from his younger brother, didn't fail to perceive.

"Easy, tiger. No disrespect intended to your girl. What's this about?"

"I swear, Dean, I'm coming to you for help because this is important enough to me to put up with your jokes. It's not about me. It's about her, more specifically about trying to stop somebody who's hurting her but is too much of a bully and a coward to even do it out on the open—"

"Meaning?"

"I'm getting to it, but first I need you to promise me that you can hold off with your usual crap, giving me crap anyway, until I finish and you give me your advice, your suggestions on what to do."

Dean made a visible effort to wipe any trace of a smirk from his face and answered in a serious tone.

"Okay, Sam. I promise."

"Good. Okay then, well, this part is hard to say because I know your first reaction is to be all 'Hey, I like girls who don't hold out. What's not to like?' But just remember you promised not to make any jokes at her expense. I mean it, Dean."

"I can see that."

"Her name is Dacey Henderson, Candace actually, and she was with the quarterback of the football team over this past summer—"

"And by 'with' you mean—"

Sam's eyes were hard.

"Just what you think I mean. The point is nobody gives a damn what he does, or they think he's some big stud or whatever, but she's like this social outcast because they had sex, and he apparently dumped her before school even started, which makes him a total jerk in my book. Anyway, some loudmouth spread it around to all the other loudmouths, so she walks in the door of the school her first day there already with this reputation for being a slut, and, like I said, it only makes him a bigger man on campus or some such bullshit."

"Okay, so that sucks and all, but what can anybody do about it?"

"That isn't all, Dean. Somebody's making obscene, scary obscene, calls to her house, and she's really shaken up about it, but she won't even tell her mom, so I have to figure out who it is and make them stop before Dad comes in the door and says we're off to Kalamazoo or Idaho or somewhere."

"Does she know?"

"Know what?"

"That you're not gonna be able to stick by her either."

Sam flinched. Trust Dean to cut to the heart of the matter.

"I'm telling her the next time I see her, but I wanted to get going on coming up with a plan of action to help her as much as I can before we have to go."

"Do you have anything to go on to figure out who's doing it, who's making the calls?"

"I didn't, but then something Dacey told me about what the guy said got me thinking. I was in the school office today, nothing major, just going over my class choices with the Guidance Counselor, and this other girl was in there, this cheerleader girl working in there. She could get access to the student records, right?"

"Right."

"Well, Dacey said the guy on the phone called her 'Candy' and that no students at the school would have any way to know that her real name is Candace. This cheerleader girl could have looked at Dacey's file and seen her full name and told the guy making the calls. It makes me sick thinking about the kind of things a guy like that could say using disgusting references to candy and stuff to do with sex. No wonder Dacey is so upset."

Sam knew that Dean would be very likely to make jokes in some ways similar to what the harassing caller had no doubt done with the fodder of a name like Dacey's, but Dean would only do it as jokes and would never say them directly to a girl to hurt her. Despite his bravado and actual impressive success with people of the female persuasion, Sam knew something even more relevant to this subject about his older brother that the Winchester in question mostly tried to hide: Dean was a romantic at heart, and Sam was sure of it both because of the reverence he knew Dean felt for their late mother but also from the kinds of movies he only watched when he thought Sam was asleep or when he mistakenly thought he'd convinced Sam that there was some other reason for the film choice.

After all, Dean had taken him for his fifteenth birthday last year to a second-run theater showing _The Wedding Singer_, no doubt because he'd gambled that the Adam Sandler feature had enough ridiculous comedy to disguise it's big-red-hearts-and-flowers-level cornball heart, but Sam hadn't failed to notice the tender, starry-eyed grin that had lingered on his tough-guy brother's face when true love won out in the end. And no amount of covering later with comments about Drew Barrymore's talents for filling out a sweater would ever persuade Sam that Dean hadn't secretly been rendered into a leather-jacket-clad pile of goo. Because Sam had grown quite fond of the tidy alignment of his own teeth over the years, he couldn't foresee an occasion when he would ever reveal this intuited knowledge. Some subjects were just off limits as teasing material, and the psyche-deep link to their departed mother that this one featured meant that Sam had no intention of ever mentioning Dean's melty center underneath the crunchy candy coating.

Maybe part of Dean welcomed the opportunities all the moving from town to town afforded him not to get involved in serious relationships himself because of how much their mother's death had hurt him so that he couldn't face the idea of that kind of loss again, more specifically because he just didn't want the pain of leaving a serious girlfriend behind when the Winchesters left town. Sam didn't pretend to know the complete answer, but he was very sure it wasn't all just the thrill and novelty of adding notches to his proverbial bedpost. It was why Sam had decided to come to Dean with this in the first place. Dean's face told him he'd made the right decision.

"What makes you think this cheerleader has something against Dacey? Is she hot for the quarterback herself?"

"Maybe. I don't know. It's just that I caught her staring at me when she thought I wasn't looking, and I'm starting to think it's because she's seen me around with Dacey. Otherwise, who am I to a Senior girl, a cheerleader no less, to be staring at like that?"

"Do you have any proof, Sammy?"

"No, it's just a hunch so far. Something was just off about how that Becca Allen, that's her name, Becca Allen, was looking at me."

"Then, I can help you get some."

Normally, a line like that would have led instantly to Dean making a joke about the alternative meaning of the last two words of his reply. Not this time though. This time Dean's eyes were agleam with the same kind of determination that they held when he was schooling himself in preparation for a serious hunt, and that was exactly what Sam had been counting on.

* * *

It was official. A random Wed. was now the best day of his life. No matter what else was going on, Sam had already learned over the course of a life filled with uncertainty to look for little things to be happy about. He wasn't anywhere near as good at it as Dean was, but he had his moments, and today was at the top of his list.

He'd been standing at his locker collecting the books he'd need for homework just like after any school day when he was startled by a sudden "attack" from behind. Two arms encircled him, and a body clearly less than his own height crashed into him. But before any kind of hunter instinct could kick in enough to elicit a defensive maneuver, a great thing under the circumstances, a giddily-excited female voice exclaimed, "I aced it! You're a genius, Sam Winchester!"

As he hurriedly turned to confirm the identity of his "attacker", Dacey let go long enough for him to see her beaming grin before she launched herself at him again and burst out laughing.

"Oh, Sam. You should see your face. I totally freaked you out. Sorry about that, but thank you, thank you, _thank _you!"

So, yes, he was caught off guard, but he had the presence of mind to have returned that second embrace. Bathing in the exaltation of her praise and of her body pressed against his, even as he took care not to hold her too tight or to hold on past the point when she moved to be released, Sam rode the immediate wave of joy that coursed through his veins. It was all he could do not to kiss her right there in the hallway, but somehow he restrained that impulse.

Tonight he'd finally given up trying to study once he finished his written homework assignments because all his brain wanted to do was relive the moment over and over again. Besides, as soon as Dean got in, there was something new Sam needed to report, the one tiny dark cloud that had dared to intrude on his special moment with Dacey. Even as he'd smiled and nodded and tried to listen to her recount the details of her test results along with continued praise of his tutelage, Sam couldn't help taking note of two people further down the other end of the hall who were feigning casual indifference but were still obviously observing their conversation and straining to hear it.

One face was all too familiar because he'd only just seen it yesterday: it was Becca Allen again, and the guy whose locker she was lounging next to looked familiar too even though Sam didn't know his name. The guy was the main cretin yelling the nasty insults at Dacey the fateful day Sam first met her, and Sam couldn't wait to fill Dean in on this breakthrough connection, since he was now convinced that the jerk was almost certainly the one making the menacing phone calls to his girl, and, yeah, if he didn't start thinking of her that way inside the privacy of his own head, how did he expect to find the courage to say it to her out loud, especially when in the same conversation he was going to have to tell her that he had no control over how long it could last?

Sam didn't know how that conversation was going to go, but he did know now that there was no way he was going to tell Dacey anything important on school grounds, not with Becca and the Hulk lurking around eavesdropping. He was going to have to be alone with her again to do it right, and that meant asking her out on an actual date, a thought almost as terrifying as the subject matter he felt honor-bound to finally cover that might end up making it both their first and last one.

* * *

_"Edward Holtower?"_

_"Yes sir."_

_"And you are…?"_

_"What's it to ya?"_

_Dean already wanted to slap the punk, but he had to maintain his cover. If said punk's back wasn't to him, he might do it anyway. The quarterback gave the guy a push in the shoulder, all the while grimacing like this wasn't the first time his smart-ass friend had shot his mouth off at the wrong time, and he at least didn't need to see the FBI ID that Dean whipped out and held up with practiced ease in order to show appropriate respect. Even though the feeling was fleeting at this point due to repetition, Dean did still always enjoy how that badge magically wiped the smirk off the faces of most arrogant pricks, and this other kid was no exception. He was a little taller than golden-boy quarterback, who appropriately enough, was blond and athletic-looking, while as-yet-unidentified-arrogant-prick-boy was dark-haired, heavier-set and just generally denser in both senses of the word._

_"That would be Agent Young to you, and I'll be asking the questions."_

_The jerk looked suitably cowed, just like most bullies when confronted by somebody with the actual authority to kick their cowardly asses with more-or-less impunity even if it would most likely be a figurative ass-kicking._

_"Sorry, sir. I'm Josh Bennett."_

_"Either of you know a student at your school named Candace?"_

_Dean was watching carefully for any tells of facial expression or body language that would tip him off to lies or evasions. Eddie appeared to be pondering the question, but a micro-expression of recognition flashed over Josh's face before he covered with a wiping motion across his brow, as if he was trying to erase or hide the thoughts racing through his brain. He was obviously the guilty party, so now it was going to be just that much harder to resist giving him a smack upside his thick skull._

_"No, sir. Is she in some kind of trouble?"_

_Why did the liars always feel so obligated to pipe up first and then try to dig for information? Must be the guilty conscience._

_"What about you, Edward?"_

_"I don't think so, sir. "_

_"You boys play football?"_

_"Varsity, sir. Eddie here's our QB, and I'm one of his Guards."_

_"I just bet you are, Josh. And maybe you've taken a few too many hits to the head in the process too because I, on the other hand, remember that I already told you that I'd be asking the questions here today."_

_"Don't mind him, sir. He just always has my back. Is there anything else we can do to help?"_

_Dean looked from Eddie to Josh and back again and had a thought. It would be different than what he was used to expecting, messy-tangled-relationships-causing-trouble-wise, but it was a possibility._

_"Well, Edward, what I can tell you is that in the course of another investigation it has come to our attention that somebody is harassing the young woman in question. So, if this harassment continues, the investigation will take a turn to see if there's any connection between that and some very serious crimes, federal crimes, that I'm not at liberty to discuss. Suffice it to say that neither one of you wants any part of this matter. Am I making myself clear?"_

_As he spoke Dean glanced at Eddie a couple of times, but mostly he kept his eyes trained on Josh, and, despite the fact that the jack-hole had recovered enough to be trying to feign macho indifference once again, he could see a trace of fear in the eyes and was even delighted to note that a droplet of sweat was working its way from hairline to jaw that he let the kid see him follow the progress of as it crept down, and Dean pointedly raised an eyebrow when the itchiness of it drove Josh to jerk his chin over and try to wipe the call sign of his guilt away on the shoulder of his t-shirt._

"So, I was right. It was the same guy."

"Has to be, Sam."

"How'd you find them?"

"It's a good thing for you that I'm just as amazing at sweet-talking moms as I am at terrifying punk-ass bullies."

"Well, you did say they were playing basketball, right Dean? Maybe that was why he was sweating."

"Give me some credit, little brother. He recognized the name 'Candace' immediately. That Eddie kid didn't even blink. I'd say he has no idea what's going on now even if he was a jerk for dumping her after he…uh, their summer fling or whatever."

"I'm glad to give you credit, Dean. Thanks a lot, really. It'll be awhile before I can pull off being a Fed., if ever, and I do think what you said will work. Guys like that only care about their sport, and that Josh guy probably at least thinks he's got a shot at an athletic scholarship, even if it is only to some Podunk U. with a football team."

"Well, nobody ever said that it takes a lot of brainpower to be an obnoxious jerk. I'd say that it does suck for him to be such an obvious stereotype, but in one way I don't think he is."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I can't be sure, but I don't think old Josh is jealous that Eddie was with Dacey before, but I do think he is jealous of Eddie being with anybody else."

"You're not making sense, Dean."

"Like I said, I'm not sure, but I think if you try a little harder and use your gaydar you'll figure it out."

Sam's eyes widened.

"Oh. You think Josh wants Eddie for himself."

"Maybe, maybe not. I'm not sure he even knows it himself. Probably wouldn't admit it even if you beat the crap out of him. Just a hunch."

"Well, anyway, thanks again, Dean. So now that just leaves one person to be set straight, and I'll take care of that myself."

"No problem, Sam. So, how is Dacey anyway?"

"I have a feeling I'll regret telling you this, but we have a date Sat. night."

"Adorable."

"Yep, it sucks to be right sometimes."

It was a good thing Dean had reverted to form though because it gave him the excuse to end the conversation before his brother remembered to ask him whether he'd been straight, a word that had a double-meaning for him at the moment due to Dean's theory about Josh, with Dacey yet about the Winchester family's gypsy wanderings, which he hadn't. Once he'd stammered through the date invite on the phone, he had decided for the last time that the news would have to be delivered literally in person and not on the phone, a possibility he'd let himself reconsider one last time after having previously ruled it out because in the end he knew that he needed to be able to look her in the eyes for fear that otherwise he'd lose her on the spot.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: **Here's the concluding part. If it isn't too much to ask, maybe just drop me a word or two in the comments to say if you liked the story. This is the first _Supernatural _story I've posted here, so I'm curious if there are people who like SPN het here. If so, I would post some of my earlier stories over here in case people might like them. In any event, thank you for reading. I really appreciate your time. (Please also see the end note for anybody who was waiting to read until they got more information about the sensitive subject matter as I mentioned in section one.)

* * *

"I thought maybe we could go get a coffee first. I got a newspaper, and then you can pick a movie—"

"Okay."

At first glance Sam was just overwhelmed anew. Every time he thought he'd seen her in a color that had to be the best one possible for her, she proved him wrong by looking even better in another. He knew he was biased, but somehow the rich, dark turquoise of her sweater that he could still see a bit of under the same brown leather jacket she'd been wearing the day they met was already his new favorite, but before too long he realized that they'd covered half the distance to the coffee shop without another word having been spoken. That wasn't like Dacey, and closer attention to her expression revealed drawn brows and eyes that were somewhere faraway from the admittedly-drab Nov. surroundings, but that meant far away from him too. The air that he'd found bracing and crisp only moments before instantly seemed merely cold.

"Is something wrong? Did you get another one of those calls?"

Sam's entire body went tense as he waited for her reply. He had been so hopeful that it amounted to being convinced by Dean's confidence that his warning had been delivered to perfection so that even a guy as vacant of redeeming qualities as Josh would have opted for self-preservation even if he wasn't capable of seeing the error of his ways.

Dacey stopped walking and turned to look at him, her face still difficult to read. She appeared to be doubting the reality of her words before she even said them so that there wasn't any one clear emotion there for Sam to latch onto.

"No, but I did get one that was just as weird, I guess, if not scary in the same way. Eddie called. He was my boyfriend last, I mean, he's that guy I—"

"I know who he is."

Dacey's eyes flashed hurt and anger in rapid succession.

"Of course you do. What was it? Painted on the boy's room wall?"

"No, I just… Dacey, what did he say?"

Sam was now afraid that maybe Dean had been a little _too_ convincing, and then those fears were realized.

"He said the strangest thing. He said that an agent from the FBI told him that a girl at school named Candace was maybe in some kind of danger but that at the time it didn't occur to him. Then later he thought he figured it out, that Candace might be me, Dacey, and he was worried about me and just wanted to make sure I was okay."

So, it was a fool's paradise he'd been living in where the worst thing he'd ever have to tell her was the thing about the transient nature of the Winchester lifestyle. Instead, he was going to have to confess to having set up this charade that had sprung from the best intentions but that he, despite never having really lived there himself, did know would seem completely alien and bizarre to a resident of the normal, everyday world.

And it probably wasn't going to matter that said world was nonetheless a place that had shown her one of its ugliest sides because Dacey was still just such a resident, what Dad and Dean routinely referred to as a "civilian." Oh, how Sam had hoped to never have those boundaries drawn between them so explicitly, not even inside his own mind.

If he had any hopes of even half-way explaining what he'd done, he needed to know the worst first, so he willed himself to push for more information.

"Is that all?"

Her incredulous retort wasn't encouraging to say the least.

"Isn't that enough?"

"Yeah, well, I just meant to see if there was more to tell, but it came out wrong, I guess."

"I'm sorry, Sam, I didn't mean to be so snappish. I'm just still a little freaked out. I told him nobody from the FBI had been in contact with me or my mom as far as I know, and he said maybe they were just following up on a tip and that we weren't really involved. Maybe they had the wrong name or something.

Out of nowhere, that just made me mad, like it reminded me of him being so mysterious and cold when he dumped me back in August. I kept asking him what I did wrong, and he wouldn't tell me. He just kept saying over and over stuff like, 'You know. Don't pretend you don't know.' And then he just walked away and never spoke to me again until today, but now I do know because he finally told me the truth, except it wasn't. Josh, his friend Josh Bennett, told him I hit on him, tried to get him to have sex with me, and Eddie believed it. I almost couldn't say anything else after that, but I yelled, 'He lied,' and slammed the phone down.

That's why I'm such a zombie now, Sam. I can't believe he just took Josh's word for it and didn't even give me a chance to say anything. At least now I know for sure I'm better off without him, and none of it was ever my fault."

As much as he wanted to, Sam couldn't do any less than tell Dacey the whole truth now too, at least about what he'd done and why, even if he couldn't tell her any specifics about the _real_ family business. Almost as strange as that was the fact that Sam and Dean both had instructions from their father on what to say instead when push came to shove, a fake reason for the secrecy and evasiveness that was their default "Plan A" about the subject but that didn't always work to quell the suspicions of a given civilian.

"Plan B" was to swear the person to secrecy and then falsely reveal that John Winchester was a private investigator, which Sam had to admit worked out to be the closest thing to "lying with the truth" that they could possibly use, since the family did investigate things privately all right, just that there was almost never any client paying for their services. So, now that there was no other choice, that cover story was Sam's only option for explaining why it would even occur to him to interfere and try to fix things for Dacey behind her back. Trying to save people was an occupational hazard, just not the occupation he was going to tell her it was, and there was no putting it off a second longer.

"Dacey, I don't think Eddie just took Josh's word for anything. I don't think Josh is even smart enough to think of any of this on his own. Somebody else put the idea in his head, and I'm pretty sure I know who."

* * *

"You're home early."

Sam was miserable, epic-French-novel-level miserable and in no mood to be teased, so he reverted to auto-pilot and went to a trick that had worked for him before. Sometimes, if he threw Dean off the track before he could launch an attack, he'd be saved by virtue of the distraction.

"Where's Dad?"

"Um, gassing up the Impala."

He now realized that he'd only _thought_ he was miserable before. Sam should have known things could always get worse. If there was any doubt, Dean's next comment was the clincher.

"Let's finish off the ice cream, Sammy. It doesn't travel."

* * *

The hum of the Impala's tires on asphalt and concrete was the only lullaby Sam could ever recall. He knew Dean held the childhood memories of their mom singing or reading to him or just the feel of her hand in his as closely-guarded treasures because he almost never spoke of them. Some of that reticence might be from not wanting to make Sam's lack of the same feel any worse for him, but there was a bit of masculine masking involved too, probably. Certainly, Dean shared and even surpassed him in welcoming their one reliable source of comfort whenever they set off down the road again, but this time not even the low rumble of her engine or her complex perfume of motor oil and aged upholstery and only slightly less aged fast food aromas was taking even the slightest edge off of the empty ache that assailed Sam's heart, a stab of pain effortlessly banishing the familiar first fog of waking up in the Impala's embrace without any idea where he was geographically but this time all too certain that he was lost, or more like that this most recent rekindling of his dream of a normal life was, lost and growing more distant and unreachable with every passing mile.

The stubborn rational part of Sam kept reminding him that at least he and Dacey had parted on good terms, which had seemed highly unlikely at first after she laid into him for secretly butting into her life, and, just as he'd feared, it was the doing it secretly that had misfired on him the most, but, once he'd been hit with the news that he wasn't going to have the chance to slowly and carefully work his way back into her good graces, he'd had no choice but to go for one last ditch effort to get her to accept the apology she'd initially wanted no part of, maybe because his revelation had followed so closely on Eddie's so that the similarities in how the both of them had made decisions that impacted her life without consulting her first weighed heavier than he thought they really should because that viewpoint left no room for the differences in motives and judgments behind what the two of them had done.

Well, at least that was the gist of the rationale Sam had had time to come up with on the walk back over to Dacey's place after leaving Dean, a fleeting flicker of feigned resignation crossing his face at the prospect of finishing the ice cream on his own barely outlasting the first rapturous taste, not that his parting, "Good luck, Sammy. You'll need it," around a goopy mouthful of vanilla fudge swirl wasn't plenty sincere because, after all, he'd done all he could for a girl he'd never laid eyes on all because his little brother had asked for his help. Still, the more Sam rehearsed what he hoped to say, the less convincing it sounded, and then it almost hadn't mattered anyway.

_"Dacey's not here, Sam. When she came back in so soon I tried to ask her what happened, but she wouldn't tell me. That girl can be silent as the grave when she wants to, so I let her be. Then, not ten minutes later she was back out the door. Said she'd be back soon if you want to wait. Maybe you two can patch things up."_

_Dacey's mom, because Sam still had a hard time thinking of her as "Claudia" even if he'd managed to make himself call her that out loud a couple of times since she'd asked him to, looked equal parts curious and concerned, but she didn't pry. She even managed an encouraging smile._

_"Thanks, I will wait if it's okay."_

_"Sure, come on in out of the cold."_

_"I'd rather wait out here if you don't mind."_

_"If that's what you want, but don't be proud. If you get chilled, just knock again, and you can come in for a hot drink to warm up. Speaking of, would you like some hot chocolate or a cup of tea, Sam?"_

_"No, thank you. But it's really nice of you to offer."_

_"Okay, frozen martyrdom it is. I'll be going out soon myself though. Book club on Sat. night this week to switch things up, or so my friend Abby said. I'm afraid she's really just trying to set me up with her tax accountant. Can you see me with a tax accountant, Sam? "_

_"I, uh—"_

_"You don't have to answer that. Who knows? Maybe he's nice. If he's willing to come to a book club meeting though, I'm not sure what to think. Okay, see ya later, Sam."_

_Sam sat down on the second to the top step of the porch, wincing a little at the similarity to what he imagined it would be like to park his skinny butt on a big block of ice, but then Dacey's mom had hit on it, hadn't she? Did he really think that finding him sitting there when she returned, doing his best imitation of a frozen puppy dog, would make any difference in how Dacey took the news that, not only was he an interfering, albeit apologetic and well-meaning, jerk, he was also about to be a disappearing-into-thin-air-never-to-be-heard-from- again interfering jerk, with impeccable timing no less to be prevailing upon her sympathy all the more pathetically unfairly because of his impending disappearance, the classic Winchester family trifecta._

_He would find out soon enough though because there she was right down the street and booking it just about as fast as she had been the first day he saw her. He could hear the clacking of her boot heels quite clearly, but there was no chance he'd get to play any semblance of the hero in this scenario._

_"Are you trying to catch pneumonia?"_

_Dacey was every bit as perceptive as her mother to Sam's utter lack of surprise._

_"No, I just didn't feel like I should be in there chatting with your mom like everything was fine when you got back. She's going out anyway."_

_"Yeah, that's right. Book club. So, if you just want to say you're sorry again, it'll keep until you hear my update because it's a doozy. You were right."_

_"Right about what?"_

_Sam was so flustered by the jumble of emotions fist-fighting their way all around his insides that even his curiosity made listening attentively a bit of a struggle. There was the happiness that she was even talking to him again, the dread at having to tell her his own "update", but mostly the keen desire to memorize every inch of her face, since this was going to be the last time he was ever going to get to see it anywhere other than in his memory._

_"It's a 'who'. Becca, that's who."_

* * *

The darkness was welcome because it meant that Dad and Dean up in the front seat wouldn't have any idea that he was awake, not that they'd try to talk to him even if they did. John Winchester wasn't the kind of father to interfere in his sons' romantic lives or lack thereof except for having made it crystal clear to Dean within Sam's hearing that birth control generally and condoms specifically were a requirement because leaving any town with the possibility of also leaving behind an unprotected future Winchester wasn't acceptable behavior, knowing what they did about how the world really worked. In any event, Dean would never tell him the specific reason for how Sam was feeling right about now. As for overall conversation etiquette in the Impala, the driver set the tone, and their dad was the driver, period, so long silences weren't uncommon.

Thus alone with his thoughts, Sam had concluded that, if he strained rationality to the breaking point, he could theoretically perceive the why of Becca having felt the way she must have to even consider setting her plan in motion, but no matter how many lonely years he might spend or how unrequited his love might be for anyone ever, he would never understand or forgive the cruelty of what she had done, the base selfishness of it all.

_"I didn't know you two were all that serious, and I just wanted to be sure Eddie could trust you. Besides, Josh had a thing for you too, and I figured if you didn't like Eddie all that much, then maybe you might like Josh better."_

_"You are such a liar. You thought I wasn't good enough for Eddie, or you wanted him for yourself, maybe both, so you put Josh up to making a move on me."_

_"Well, you could have told Eddie about it, so you must have thought it was okay to flirt around with other guys—"_

_"Just shut up before I slap you, seriously. I knew how close of friends Josh and Eddie are, so when he begged me not to tell Eddie I said 'okay', but you know that because you counted on me caring more about Eddie's feelings than to ruin their friendship by ratting Josh out. Then, you went skipping, or maybe flying on your broom, over to Eddie to tell him all your lies. You are one heartless witch."_

_"As if I care what you think. All I care about is that Eddie dumped you before your trailer trashiness could rub off on him."_

_"Not that it matters, but I live in a house, and my mom works really hard to make a good life for us. And you may not care what I think, but you do care very much what the whole school thinks and, especially, what Eddie thinks of you—"_

_"Like anybody would believe anything you say, the slut of East Brockton—"_

_"It's none of your business who anybody has sex with or doesn't have sex with. In fact, it's nobody's business ever, but I can make what you did everybody's business, and it doesn't matter one bit what they think of me either way."_

_"What are you even talking about?"_

_"I'm talking about this…"_

_Dacey hit the "stop" button and simultaneously held up the little hand-held tape recorder, reenacting the recorded moment for Sam's benefit._

_"There's more, but it's just what you'd expect, disbelief, threats, begging, come to think of it, it's like the stages of grief at hyper-speed. She didn't care one bit about what she did to me, not even what she did to Eddie, until I showed her I had it all on tape."_

_"I'm sure it never occurred to her that you'd be able to expose all her lies."_

_"Nope, and it never occurred to me either until you came along, Sam."_

_"Well, Becca set it up that way. She had Josh do her dirty work for her and counted on you being a good person, pretty twisted._

_"Yeah, that's the part that kills me. If she really thought I was bad for Eddie, why wouldn't I have just told him what Josh did right away? Really though, that's what I should have done anyway, but I was too shocked at first, I guess, that Eddie just turned on me like that, seemingly out of nowhere. I didn't put the pieces together."_

_"You couldn't have known."_

_"No, and, even though it's still not okay that you did it without telling me, I understand it, Sam. You probably thought you couldn't talk to me about it because every time the subject even came up at all I went into attack mode. I just didn't want you feeling sorry for me. You were my first real friend after everybody just turned away from me, and I couldn't take your pity. I'm sorry."_

_Dacey reached over and laid her hand on top of his, and Sam didn't think he'd ever felt such strongly opposing emotions in all his life: pure soaring joy and gratitude that she forgave him crushed in a leaden fist of pain and regret that he wouldn't be able to stay here and spend the time with her that it would take to build on this new foundation of hope and understanding, not with some looming monster's threat of violence and death calling his family away to their unsung duty of protecting those who didn't even know they were in danger yet and might never even know what the Winchesters had sacrificed on their behalf. _

_The joy almost made it so he didn't care that Dacey was relegating him to the role of friend rather than the something more he'd so wanted to be, mainly because being her friend was an honor all on its own, not that knowing that did much to mitigate his sorrow at leaving both friendship and anything else that it might have eventually been behind and, oh, so soon._

_"You don't have anything to be sorry for, Dacey. I'm the one who's sorry for going behind your back. I guess it's just a hazard of having a P.I. for a dad. You get the idea that secrecy and sleuthing in the name of finding the truth is okay when it's for a good cause."_

_Dacey smiled._

_"And I'm a good cause, huh?"_

_"The best."_

_The words were out before he could stop them, and their fervent tone hung in the crisp evening air for a few seconds until Sam chose to just race past them. God, he was so tired of being careful and thinking everything just to death and talking himself out of ever trying to live in the moment because logic and reason said that moments were fleeting and ephemeral and thus had to be resigned to the arc of what was best for the long run. Maybe that was true sometimes, even a lot of times, but not right now. Right now was one of those moments he knew he would never get back, so he just did it: he leaned over and kissed her._

_Even if she got mad at him all over again for doing it without having told her his news that was as bad to him as hers was good, it would have been worth it, that split second where she froze at how unexpected it all was before melting into kissing him back, her mouth so warm and sweet, the way it started off soft but then tunneled through him in a rush of sensation, a swooping down the way a bird must feel, that steep drop down the sky before aerodynamics took over and then the rise, the flight back up, sent out waves of dizzy, breathless elation until breathing was only the two of them breathing each other in. Every other touch, his hand under her hair, hers cupped against the back of his neck, thumb grazing back and forth tenderly, these were the outer boundaries of the singular space they shared, the center of it where their lips were joined, all of it every bit as thrilling as on Halloween but better now, better because he had all of Dacey there with him, no distance or dulling from the intervention of alcohol and thus no guilt or ache of restraint. _

_For once Sam was thoughtless, thoughtless in the sense of not holding back just in case she didn't love him too because if he didn't show her now, then she'd never ever know, and that would be the one thing that really was unbearable, so it poured out of him and into the kiss, no words at all, his low-pitched moan broken and muffled against her throat before he found her mouth again, not wanting this first true kiss ever to end. But the part of him that knew it had to finally struggled to the surface. As wonderful as the moment was, he still had something he had to say, and it might ruin the goodbyes that it would unavoidably entail. _

_Reluctantly, Sam pulled away._

_"Dacey?"_

_She met his eyes fearlessly, the gaze clearer maybe than he'd ever seen from her and the smile brightening her own even as it brought out that dimple in her left cheek that he knew he would remember the rest of his days._

_"Yeah, Sam."_

_If only he didn't have to dim that beautiful light, but it wasn't like they'd been a couple for a long time or anything, so, no matter how much she meant to him, it didn't mean she would be all that upset to find out that these were their last moments together. Maybe it would be okay for her._

_"I did come back over here to say I'm sorry again, but that's not all. I just found out my dad has a new client, and the job isn't anywhere near here, so we have to go."_

_"What? I mean, where?"_

_"Someplace in Colorado I never heard of."_

_"Oh, that is far."_

_Her tone was flat and unbelieving._

_"It is."_

_Sam felt as if he were shrinking and withering until any time now all that would be left would be the tightening despair that started somewhere in his head and was spreading out and down from there._

_"When are you leaving?"_

_"Tomorrow."_

_So, it was out, finally, that one word stripped bare of all its promise under other circumstances, those where it might instead signal hope and possibility, because in this context it meant there wasn't any at all, not for whatever Sam and Dacey might have wanted this connection they shared to be. He watched as her expression changed, the gentle happiness replaced with something that had all the markings of anger, except for the water welling up that she blinked rapidly a few times to clear away, but maybe that just meant she was really, really mad, and he couldn't blame her._

_Claudia chose that moment to open the front door and breeze out onto the porch, and, if she noticed the tension between them, at first it seemed like she was going to ignore it, probably because she thought they were still working on whatever had broken up their earlier plans for the evening, since the only way she could know that there had been a considerable thaw between them only a few seconds ago before he'd destroyed it again is if she'd been spying on them from inside, not something that seemed a Claudia-like thing to do from what Sam knew of her._

_"Well, here goes nothin', kids, but I guess all that stuff about 'nothing ventured, nothing gained' has kinda got a point to it."_

_Sam's unfortunate announcement had already created plenty of space between the two of them for her to fit between, so Claudia stepped through and then descended the rest of the steps before turning to face Sam and Dacey._

_"I know this is a 'none of your business, Mom' moment here, daughter of mine, but I am still the mom, so I have to say something, and then I'll butt out. And this is it: people come and go in this life, and a lot of the time there isn't much you can do about it, but friends are worth fighting for, even when, sometimes, it means fighting with them. So, do what you have to do."_

_"Okay, Mom. Thanks. Have fun."_

_Dacey probably did sincerely hope that her mom had fun, but Sam couldn't decipher much about whatever else she was thinking except that the rest of what she'd said had come out clipped and seething and purely for Claudia's benefit._

_"I'll try. See what I did there? The part about trying."_

_"Yeah, I got it."_

_"Thanks, Ms., I mean, Claudia."_

_"You're welcome, Sam. Oh, and don't wait up, Dacey. We're having wine, and I'm a lightweight, so I don't want to drive after even one glass. I'm staying over at Abby's. Call me if you need me though, and I'll be right home at the speed of, well, a taxi."_

_Sam glanced at the large purse Claudia was carrying that could easily double as an overnight bag._

_"Have a good night then."_

_"'Night, Mom."_

_"Good night, you two."_

_Then Claudia's car was backing down the driveway before disappearing from their view, and they were alone together again, well except for the silence that had apparently been waiting for her to leave to reappear and threaten to engulf them as it grew._

* * *

"Wake up, Dean. You too, Sam. Time to stop for the night. I'll be right back. You two wait here."

"Yes, sir."

Sam didn't bother explaining that he wasn't asleep because it didn't really matter. He heard a massive yawn and could see Dean's arms outstretched over his head as their dad headed to the motel office to check them in.

"Where are we?"

Sam rolled his eyes and opened the car door, tossing a reply back over his shoulder before closing it on any possible response.

"What difference does it make?"

Almost immediately though, Dean was popping the trunk and meeting him there to gather the bags with the cache of weapons and other gear that the Winchesters specifically liked to have handy in a motel room in case of the emergency of unexpected and thus, in most cases, unwanted visitors, seeing as how nobody should have any idea of their location unless they were tracking them, and there was almost no chance that would be to drop off a basket of muffins to welcome them to the neighborhood as they passed one night in any given town on the way to their destination.

"Two words, Sam: regional..."

Dean held up one index finger as he nodded confidently.

"… and _cuisine."_

He added a second finger and an eyebrow waggle to convey the significance of this revelation.

Sam managed the bare bones of a smile.

"What, no belly rub as a final flourish? And 'cuisine'? Really?"

He knew Dean was doing his best to distract him and maybe even cheer him up a little, but he wasn't ready for it yet even if he did appreciate the effort.

"Oh, are we playing charades now? 'Cause I always kick your ass in that game."

Luckily for Sam, their dad wasn't in any mood for idle anything, much less fraternal sparring.

"Meet here 0600 hours, boys. I'm beat, so I got separate quarters. Doesn't mean you stay up yakking and show up late. You can hit the vending machine if you're hungry, but don't take all night about it. Pretty decent diner hereabouts as I recall, so we'll get a good grub before we head out in the morning. Sleep tight."

Sam took the proffered door key from their father and hoisted a couple of bags, but he still caught Dean's eye-bulgingly-significant look that silently said, "See, I was right about the food." without appearing to begin a round of that staying up yakking that they'd just been ordered not to do. A pang of nostalgia somehow found a spot in his heart that wasn't already throbbing as he realized that moments like these were the closest thing the three of them had to those comforting rituals normal families had, things like going to baseball games and big family gatherings for holidays, and it was at just such times that he truly appreciated his brother for his ability to find emotional sustenance in the most barren of environments. He did know that a lot of it was done for his benefit too, even when Dean's incessant teasing got on his last nerve, because at the bottom of it all was Dean trying to protect and love his little brother the best way he knew how. So, Sam threw Dean a conciliatory smirk and unlocked the door of their room.

"Okay, Sammy. Cough up your coins. I'll go get some snacks. Your usual?"

Sam produced three quarters and a dime.

"I'll front ya the rest. Soda?"

"Nah, I'll just drink some water."

"Clearly, you don't appreciate the way the appropriate carbonated beverage combines with artificially-flavored-and-colored salty goodness to create something greater than the sum of its parts. Never mind. I'll getcha a Coke. You'll thank me later. Back in a flash."

"Thanks, Dean."

Sam was expressing gratitude for more than a free soda. His look said that he meant for helping him with Dacey's tormenters and for distracting their dad from Sam's more than usual taciturn melancholy, and Dean's eyes said back that he knew it even if he kept up the light brotherly bantering tone to avoid any semblance of unmanly mushiness.

"Sure thing, kid."

Dropping the weapons bag on the floor between the two double beds, Sam sat down on the foot of the one nearest the bathroom still holding onto his own personal duffel like an unconscious substitute for the stuffed puppy with the soft brown fur and sad black button eyes that had long since been discarded, one front paw partially denuded of all but a little fuzz from a far younger Sam's nightly grip, somewhere along the Winchesters' vagabond way, and his mind returned to the painful, awkward silence that held him and Dacey in its thrall once Claudia's little beater Honda turned the corner out of sight.

_Before it could swallow them whole, Sam decided to try changing the subject back to Dacey's richly-deserved moment of triumph over Becca._

_"Have you decided?"_

_"Decided what, Sam?'_

_Well, that was an iota better than "Shut up, Sam." and infinitely better than "Just leave, Sam."_

_"What to do with the tape. I mean, even if you don't want to play it over the school intercom, you could at least let Eddie hear it. Josh doesn't deserve you covering for him with Eddie any more if you ask me, which I know you didn't…"_

_There had been enough wishful thinking and secrecy on his part, and Sam had no choice but to admit to himself that Dacey just might give Eddie another chance now that she knew he'd been lied to, and it wasn't any of Sam's business really if she did, but, even so, now that they were talking about all of this and since she was mad at him anyway, he couldn't hold in any more the part that had pushed him into action in the first place. Maybe it would make a difference to Dacey, and maybe it wouldn't, but Sam had to get it out._

_"…and, obviously, I'm the last person to say that people don't deserve second chances after they screw up, but, whatever you decide, I just hope you think about how Eddie's screw up may have only been taking the word of two people he's been friends with a long time over yours, or maybe there's more to it—"_

_"What do you mean 'more to it'? You don't even know Eddie."_

_"I mean, what if Eddie didn't just take Josh's word for it that you cheated on him or whatever because Josh is his friend? What if he believes guys over girls just in general? You said he wouldn't even let you ask him what was wrong. So, did he just assume you would lie? And if he did, why did he think that?_

_Dacey, I'm no psychologist or anything, and I swear I'm not trying to be just as bad, like trying to tell you what to think about him. I know you know him better than I do, and you should do whatever you want, but I lo-, I care about you a lot, and the reason I butted in in the first place is because it killed me that somebody would treat you like that when you deserve to be treated so much better because you're an amazing person. That's it. If you think I'm a nosy, bossy jerk, then at least I did my best to explain." _

_Sam had stared at the tips of his sneakers the whole time, his voice low, but he'd also had to say all of that because he'd never forget how it felt to hear her crying after that cowardly and disgusting phone call from Josh, the anger and frustration that drove him to act, so if she hated him now, then he was ready to beat a hasty retreat, a valuable hunter skill that he was seeing in a newly-appreciative light, but what he was really hoping for was that Dacey would at least understand why he'd said it even if she didn't agree with him or return his feelings, especially now that he wasn't going to be around to do anything about them._

_"Sam?"_

_Her eyes were boring into him, but he couldn't seem to do anything but brace himself for whatever was coming._

_"Yeah."_

_"Look at me. Please."_

_He struggled to comply, wincing on the inside because whether she knew it or not, his heart was hers to command, even more than usual._

_"Okay."_

_What he saw there told him that she did understand, and maybe she additionally knew that the leaving would break him even if she didn't, so that left room for mercy. When she spoke though, it was pure Dacey._

_"So you're down to the one-word answers now? Use up your whole quota for speeches tonight?"_

_She looked mostly sad, but there was still a little twitch at the corner of her mouth, and there was that damn dimple again._

_"Yeah, I guess so. That was probably more than enough for a month."_

_"You're pretty evolved for a guy, ya know? Anybody ever tell you that, Sam?"_

_"Not exactly. You're the first, um, I mean, it hasn't exactly come up…"_

_Why did every word he was saying now sound like sexual double meanings that made him seem like the geekiest virgin on the planet?_

_"I don't want you to leave."_

_Sam sighed heavily._

_"I don't want to either. You have no idea. But I don't have any choice."_

_Uh oh. The dawning sense of relief from letting out all that bottled up stuff and finding out that it at least made some kind of sense to her was giving way to something else, had freed up what he was horrified to discover were tears welling up in both eyes, so he turned away to hide this fresh indignity._

* * *

Dean was right. Even now, having just stood morosely brushing his teeth in the bazillionth random motel bathroom of his lifetime with the result that the taste in his mouth was mostly minty fresh, Sam relished the memory of the catalytic fizz from the first icy gulp of a freshly-popped Coke as it amplified the salt and tang of a mouthful of Funyuns. The first godawful collision of toothpaste and Funyun-coated teeth: not so awesome, but that was the price to be paid for snacking right before bed. In any event, here at last he was the closest he'd been to privacy all day, alone in his own bed instead of doubling up with Dean, since their dad had sprung for two rooms, something he was doing more and more now that his sons were almost grown. Well, Dean _was_ essentially grown, physically anyway, and Sam was getting there.  
Maybe in the past he would have felt secure enough inside his own head to indulge in a little mental-image-based fantasizing on such occasions when he had his own motel bed and the darkness and when the quiet was broken only by the sound of Dean's sleep breathing, not exactly snoring or anything but recognizable as such through repetition. Dean couldn't even credibly fake it when he wasn't really asleep because Sam could tell the difference.

Somehow, now, tonight, the thought of such peculiar knowledge only magnified the sense of exactly how strange and not-normal the Winchester family's lifestyle was. Pushing such considerations away for the moment, there was something, or rather, someone, else he'd far rather think about now that he was more or less alone. This time the term "fantasy" only fit in the sense of how unlikely, hence fantastical, he would have considered what happened to have been right up to the moment it stopped being so and became a reality, completely inauspicious beginning notwithstanding.

_Sam wrapped his arms around his drawn-up knees and surreptitiously ducked his head between them long enough to wipe his face against the denim on both sides just in case there had been any spillage._

_"You must be freezing."_

_"I'm okay, but I'm sure you want to get inside and warm up. I guess I'd better—"_

_"No, Sam. What I meant before was I don't want you to leave tonight in particular, separate from the other that you don't have any choice about. It's our last chance to hang out. Do you think your dad would let you? I mean, if you even want to."_

_Sam's heart thumped painfully. Oh, he wanted to all right._

_"That would be great. I can call and ask, but I'll have to fudge the truth a little, say I'm staying with a friend."_

_Dacey couldn't resist a line teed up that provocatively._

_"So, I'm not a friend, huh? Good to know. Schoolmate then? Or, is it 'tutee'? Is that a word even? Since you did help me ace that algebra test, you and your mathleticism, and I know I just made up that one."_

_"Nice one. You know what I mean."_

_Sam was refusing to read into this situation any more than what Dacey had said it would be, a chance to hang out, sit up all night talking most likely, but he was just happy for every moment he could spend with her._

_"Yeah, I do know. Come on in and call your dad before he sends your brother out after you."_

_Dacey was joking, but Sam knew it was a distinct possibility and one he wanted to avoid for the sheer awkwardness factor beyond it ruining his last chance for this night not to be ruined. Sam stood up and reached down to help her to her feet._

_"Okay, like your mom said, here goes nothin'."_

_She was now standing on the porch proper, a step higher than he was, which put them almost at equal height. Pausing to search his eyes, she leaned into him, and their lips met again, warm breath mingling in stark contrast to the chill that permeated even the strands of her hair that Sam reflexively massaged between the pads of his fingertips._

_Dacey backed away and turned to open the front door. When he gestured that she should proceed ahead of him, she grinned over her shoulder, "Much better than nothin' if you ask me."_

* * *

_"Thanks."_

_Sam breathed in the steam from his mug of cider, the heat soothing and the mix of fruit and spices vividly recalling his very first impression of Dacey as an alluring amalgam of feminine mystery and the mythological concept of "home". He knew his perspective was the opposite of most other people's experience, but even to them the rituals of the change of seasons, the hearth and home part, must resonate on a heightened level from time to time. If it didn't, the glory of it was wasted on them, and at least he knew he'd never take such things for granted even if he ever succeeded in escaping the hunting life and finding some degree of normalcy, something more than the tantalizing glimpses he occasionally got from his position on the periphery of other people's lives._

_"You're welcome. Thanks for getting the fire going. I know how, but it's nice to come into the room and into the warmth. I just love the smell of wood smoke this time of year."_

_Sam refused to think about the other kind of ritual uses for fire and flames. Being here with Dacey existed in a different realm, and he refused to taint it._

_"No problem."_

_She sat down on the rug in front of the fireplace._

_"You must still be cold. Come sit down here with me."_

_Sam complied, and they sat side-by-side in companionable silence for awhile, looking at the flames and listening to the cozy crackling, but the warmth that was suffusing him wasn't all coming from that direction. He couldn't stop thinking about that kiss out on the porch. And then she'd kissed him right before they came in here, so maybe it would be okay if he took a turn again. He took a last sip of cider and set the cup down._

_Dacey turned in his direction and placed her hand over his that was resting on his thigh. Taking it as a sign, he cupped his other hand at the side of her jaw and pressed his mouth against hers. Blindly, she aimed her cup at the hearth and got it set down before responding, both hands in his hair this time, then, apparently unsatisfied with the little bit of distance between them, she climbed into Sam's lap, one boot heel briefly brushing over his leg as she crooked it past and around his hip._

_The weight of her body balanced on his drew all the urgency and want up out of him where he'd kept it hidden for so long, the constant self-talk that she'd never want him like that, that he shouldn't make a fool out of himself, finally silenced and negated by the way her tongue met his in the kiss and in the way she pushed against him as if it just wasn't physically possible to get close enough. It just seemed natural to let their shifting weight take the course of following gravity down, Sam on his back with Dacey coming down to lie on top of him._

_Now, there was no way for him not to distinguish between the parts of her stretched over him, the soft swell of her breasts that he couldn't reach, and he ran his hands up and down her back, measuring the curve at her waist and hip, and then she was reaching under his t-shirt, her touch on his bare skin so different and thrilling than any he'd felt before. There was no point in trying to hide the way his body was reacting, no sense from her that he should even try to. Without conscious thought on his part, escalated response seemed called for, so he slid his palms down her back again and kept going until they met and outlined the twin curves at their base, thumbs pressing into and cupping her flesh._

_Dacey sighed and sucked down on his bottom lip before finishing the kiss and sitting up. She rested her forearms at the hem of her sweater and pulled it up and over her head while Sam's heart beat so forcefully in his chest that, if it were possible, it should have broken a rib from the inside out._

_"Now you. I want to feel you, Sam. Is that okay?"_

_"Yeah, it's okay. Are you sure?"_

_"I'm sure."_

_With only a little bit of fumbling, he got his sweater and t-shirt off in one go. A tiny part of him hated feeling like every movie cliché ever, but he really couldn't stop eying the blue of her bra, a different blue than the turquoise of her sweater that he'd so admired earlier in the evening before things took this wonder-inspiring series of turns, a pale pastel against her paler skin, the fullness he'd felt against him earlier made manifest. He knew he was staring but looking away abruptly might only be more obvious. Then again, maybe not._

_"You can touch me too."_

_Words seemed superfluous, and what could he even say anyway? "Thank you" seemed appropriate but also completely ridiculous, so he sat up instead and covered some of the awkwardness with a kiss, but he accepted the offer too, hands sliding up from underneath, fingers tracing over the paper-thin fabric, twin bumps in the center of each rounded swell that he knew were nipples, his thumbs once again taking the lead, gently prodding and kneading until he coaxed the little bumps erect and discrete, all the while his mouth taking measure of her responses, the puffs of breath as his touch excited her, his own response accelerating in kind._

_Then, Dacey pulled away, and a wave of self-reproach hit Sam broadside, somehow both expected and unexpected._

_"I'm sorry."_

_"No, Sam. Don't be. I just want to say something first, tell you this is what I want, not some just physical reaction taking over thing."_

_"What are you saying, Dacey?"_

_"I'm saying I want to remember you this way, for always, and this is how I want you to remember me too. I want to be the one you remember. Maybe it's selfish of me, but that's what I want, but only if you want it too."_

_He knew what she was implying, so why not just get it out in the open._

_"You mean 'cause I'm a virgin."_

_"And I'm not."_

_"But I don't care. Wait, that came out wrong. I mean, I never expected you to even ever like me enough to want to kiss me, much less anything else, and I never assumed the idea that maybe you had done something before, if it was even true, meant anything about what might happen or not. It just never mattered."_

_"Not even a little bit?"_

_"Yeah, maybe a little bit, but not that way, just as maybe it kinda made the idea that you knew for real things I only thought about, made you more amazing and maybe exciting, but not in a way that seemed to have any real connection to me as in that it would ever happen to you and me together. And I know that didn't make any sense at all."_

_"Yeah, it actually did. Thanks for being honest, Sam. I know this kind of stuff is hard to talk about. It's hard for me too. Before you came along all I had was this wall of anger to keep people out, the ones who said horrible things and made horrible phone calls and the ones who won't even look at me, much less talk to me at school."_

_"They are complete idiots and morons, Dacey, and you're worth a thousand, no, a million of them with their stupid, careless cruelty that they do without thinking, like just breathing. And the ones who know it's wrong to be so mean to you but do it anyway, they're even worse, to me, cowards and losers."_

_"And that's why I want you to always remember me, Sam, because you're different." , _

_"But you don't have to prove anything to me or give me anything for me to remember you. I already will. I always will."_

_"Exactly."_

_"But it might make both of us sadder when I go. It's tomorrow, Dacey, and I can't get out of it."_

_"I know, Sam. I know it'll hurt, but it will anyway. This way, it'll hurt like looking at something beautiful that you know is only for a little while, something corny because it's true, like an incredible sunset or a flower blooming. It makes it worth it. You're worth it, Sam. I just know it in my bones."_

_"Then, I have to say it even if it sounds corny, but I think I love you, Dacey. No, I know I do."_

_"I know what you mean. Love isn't the same thing all the time in every situation. Doesn't make it less real or mean less just because we don't get to have it together in the same place for very long. You can take it with you, and I can keep it with me. And really being together like this will only help that happen, so I really do want to be with you."_

_"Me too."_

_Maybe they weren't eloquent, but those two words said everything Sam had left to say, so he kissed her again, their weight balancing in her direction this time, so he made sure to cradle her head in his hand as they eased down again, the flicker of firelight casting red shadows behind his closed eyelids the only thing in his inner vision that wasn't filled up and suffused with Dacey, Dacey in flesh and in spirit, soaking in at every point of contact so that he was certain she'd stay with him, a part of him that no journey of time or distance could ever erase._

* * *

So, it had been a fantasy come true, but Sam wanted to hold being with Dacey separate from the kind of stuff you'd see in a naked picture magazine, which was what made the vivid images in his mind fit the one meaning of fantasy, as in unbelievably amazing to have ever even happened at all, but not the other more mundane sexual connotation. It wasn't that he was in any way ashamed of what they'd done, but more that he didn't see the sex part as a separate thing like that. The physical had been a method of truly embodying and illuminating the emotional connection he and Dacey had shared and would keep now as memories, the part he could hold on to even though he felt pretty sure that he'd never actually see her again. If thinking of their night together in those terms and feeling so sad about how short their time together in general had been made him a "girl", then Sam didn't care one damn bit right now, and he hoped he never would. The word that kept repeating in his mind was "sacred". That's what seemed to fit best.

And the way he would keep it so would be to do the exact opposite of what Becca and Josh had done. There was no reason Sam would ever tell anyone, and if that meant he'd have to take a year or a few years of being considered a virgin for all anybody knew, and by "anybody" he mostly meant Dean, then it was more than worth it, except Sam was almost sure Dean did know, or at least he suspected.

_"Good thing you're one of those disgusting morning people, Sammy, or it would have been my ass if you were late getting back."_

_Dean hoisted a duffel bag into the trunk of the Impala and then started poking at the other contents and arranging for there to be a little open space in case their dad's last sweep of the apartment turned up anything else that needed to fit in there. It also kept his eyes conveniently occupied so that the curiosity Sam knew must be eating him alive wouldn't be so obvious even if he didn't outright ask the question._

_"I know better. Right before an all-day ride as captive audience is no time to piss Dad off if you can help it. Learned that the hard way."_

_"Me too."_

_"Right."_

_"I told Dad you'd do fine. This friend was a geek for studying like you, and you'd probably sit around playing the home version of Jeopardy or seeing which one could recite the most decimal places of pi or something like that."_

_Sam had heard Dean talking in the background of his nerve-wracking phone call asking for the sleepover permission, and so it turned out he'd put his two cents in to try to make sure Sam got the okay._

_"It was a tie."_

_"Ha. I bet."_

_"No, seriously. Thanks, Dean. Dacey said she's sorry she never got to meet you, but she sent her thanks too for…what you did."_

_"No problem. That one punk's lucky he's not playing in the under-three-feet-tall football league now. Dumb ass thinking he's a smart ass was asking for a pounding. Deserved it too."_

_"Yeah, he did."_

_Sam almost couldn't believe it. Dean really wasn't going to pry or straight up ask or even drop any innuendo even though he knew full well he'd helped talk their dad into letting Sam spend the night with a girl, the whole night. He didn't know that her mom wasn't home either, but that wouldn't have mattered to Dean because it wouldn't have stopped him from partaking in any activities a like-minded "friend" might be inclined to enjoy with him. Still, this once he just wasn't going to make any "cherry" jokes or say anything that could end up disparaging Dacey even in a roundabout way. It was pretty amazing._

_Just then, John Winchester came into view._

_"Let's go, boys. Daylight's burning."_

Sam was tired but not sleepy, a crummy combination. Well, maybe if he stopped thinking and pondering so hard he'd be able to drift off before too long. Sometimes, a quick prayer to say thanks for letting his family make it safely through another day would be enough to kind of flip the switch on his ever-churning brain and get it to settle down for the night. Tonight though, there was an ache down low, centered wherever his metaphorical heart actually resided, that made summoning up any outright gratitude a bit too much of a challenge.

Instead, that word "sacred" popped into his head again, and he reached over and grabbed the other bed pillow and pressed it to his chest, arms wrapping around and holding on the way he'd held Dacey close to him right before they settled in to sleep for a couple of hours just this morning before he had to get up and away, away from her for good. He could almost see her face, smell the wood smoke in her hair and the lingering fragrance of apple cider spices from the cup sitting on the hearth, but only almost. Taken all together it wasn't exactly a prayer of thanksgiving for getting to have those last perfect moments with her, but tonight it would have to do. And the memories would leave a lasting impression on his soul, which made them something stronger than any single prayer, a secret touchstone that he could keep forever.

_You never knew me but I did my best_

_I'm just lonely inside I guess _

_You gave me everything you really tried_

_Thanks..._

_If we were nothing and we're only the past _

_Then I'm just living in a dream I guess _

_A long black dream that takes me down the river to you_

_Where it's almost over_

_And we're almost gone_

_And I can feel the Sweet Illusion coming _

_Sweet Confusion, honey _

_Sweet Illusion coming down_

_And I ain't got nothing but love for you now._

* * *

Note about content warning: These paired stories also share a theme: slut-shaming. It's a subject I care a lot about, and I've wanted to write about it for a long time. So, some parts of both stories could be triggering for sensitive individuals from the theme itself as well as a few examples of the abusive language and attitudes so often associated with slut-shaming. Overall, I tried my best to make the theme serve the characterization and story without sticking out too much in didactic mode like one of those "after school specials" from some years back, so there's that. Still, I have to say that if you've ever had it done to you , including the kind that is all lies about behavior you haven't even done, then know that it's wrong and that the only person who has to be all right with your choices sexually and otherwise is you.

If you _aren't_ happy with those choices, then please talk to a friend you trust or a professional who can help you understand them and work towards making your choices align better with your own values and sense of self-worth, and all of that will be what is best for you and not anybody else because this is one of those things that is very individual and unique to you. Just know that there are people out there like Sam in this story, people who will love and value you for you and not think that it's their place to judge your choices. You have a right to be yourself, and that includes your choices about sexuality. Okay, that's enough from me.  
If anybody who reads this wants to talk more though, then please send me a PM, and I promise to write back.


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